
riass __ JLAM. 

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in<i;.si;NTi:i) nv 



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tiriie mnitJtrflfit^ of Chicago 

FOUNDBD BY JOHN D. ROCKEFELLBR. 



CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES 1815-1830 



3JJ 



A DISSERTATION 

SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY 
OF THE 

GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND LITERATURE 

IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF 
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 

DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY 



BY 
DAVID R. MOORE 



CHICAGO 
1910 



.£53 ^ 



Press of 

JENNINGS & GRAHAM 

57 Wasbioffton St. 

Chicago 



The V 



■'■1*7 



OCT 1 3 JOT-8 



To My Wife 

ETHEL HAIvLAM MOORE 

this little monograph is affectionately dedicated. 



PREFACE. 



Students of Canadian history must ever be thankful for the ex- 
tensive accumulation, careful preservation, and systematic arrange- 
ment, so far as the cataloguing has progressed, of the historical 
manuscripts in the archive department at Ottawa, Canada. In the 
Ontario archives much collecting and arranging remains unfinished. 
I am very much indebted to the directors and librarians in these 
archives, especially to those in Ottawa where most of my work was 
done, for their courteous treatment and assistance. I am also very 
grateful to Professor A. C. McLaughlin and his associates in the 
history department of the University of Chicago for their patient 
reading of this monograph and for their helpful suggestions. 

University of Chicago, David R. Moore. 

December, 1910. 



CONTENTS. 



Chapter I. Tiik Generai, Condition of Affairs in 1815. 

British, Canadian, and American grievances existing after the Treaty 
of Ghent. 

Chapter II. The Michigan Frontier in 181.". 

Tardy surrender of forts; British traders and British presents re- 
ported to be the reason why the Indians resist the American occnpa- 
tion of Green Bay and other posts ; councils at Detroit ; murder of 
Akochis and other trouble near Detroit ; desertion of soldiers. 

Chapter III. Naval Armaments on the Great Lakes. 

The continued searching of vessels leads to international correspond- 
ence and reduction of the navies. 

Chapteir IV. The Indian Menace. 

The Indians in their councils of 1816 threaten war. 

Chapter V. The Canadians Retain the Indians' Good Will. 

The Indians prefer the British traders and cooperate with them ; 
failure of the American factory system. 

Chapter VI. Indian Presents. 

The British continue to send presents to American Indians ; reasons 
for this; number of Indians affected; abuses resulting from the giving 
of presents ; protests. 

Chapter VII. Apprehension of American Aggression. 

The British fear that the Canadas are still in danger of an Amer- 
ican invasion. 

Chapter VIII. Dread of American Institutions and Influences. 

Many British fear that American republican influences may cause 
the Canadians to forsake their allegiance to England. 

Chapter XL Boundary Lines and Free Navigation. 

Disputed boundary from the St. Lawrence Iliver to Lake Superior. 
United States claim the free navigation of the St. Lawrence. 

Chapter X. Commb^icial Relations. 

Navigation laws more strenuously enforced after 181;"; temporary 
and variable commercial regulations for the Canadas until 1822; de- 
mand for freer trade; abandonment of the old colonial system; smug- 
gling. 

CiiAPiKR XL Transportation. 

How Canadian relations with the I'nited States affected the trans- 
portation system and other internal affairs in the Canadas. 

7 



Canada and the United States — 1815-1830 

I. 

THE GENERAL CONDITION OF AFFAIRS IN 1815. 

The experience derived from the days of the American Revokition 
must have taught European nations wholesome lessons in the man- 
agement of colonies. Nevertheless, for over half a century after 
the British lost the United States, England still compelled her Amer- 
ican possessions to endure a slowly dying system of navigation 
laws and similar irritating and obnoxious restrictions. It was ap- 
parently with the greatest reluctance that the average European 
statesman could accept the theory that colonies do not exist solely 
for the benefit of the mother country, that they are not places for 
mere exploitation, and that local autonomy must be given in due 
season. 

The Canadas were peculiarly and dangerously situated for the 
continuance of any antiquated and nonprogressive system. Com- 
mon laws, language, customs, and descent, common commercial 
and industrial interests, similar local conditions and the lack of any 
geographical barrier tended to bring the Canadians into very close 
touch with the people in the United States. The very presence of 
the youthful, vigorous, enterprising, liberty-loving American Re- 
public was a menace to anything that abridged "natural rights." 
In addition to this, American proclamations issued during the war 
of 1812 convinced many Englishmen that the American Republic 
was to be feared not merely from the example that it set, but from 
the fact that its citizens were ambitiously eager to carry their flag 
and institutions over all the continent. A few enlightened British 
statesmen accordingly endeavored to retain the loyalty of their 
colonists by loosening the shackles which bound colonial trade and 
commerce and by strenuously opposing any arbitrary imperial 
domination in local affairs. lUit until the rebellion of 1837 the 
prevailing British jolicy was to maintain the old system, and as 
far as the Can? .s were concerned, prevent the loyal inhabitants 
there from being exposed to the contaminating influence of the 
expanding democracy to the south of them. 

The Treaty of Ghent in 181 4 was gladly welcomed because it 
brought about the cessation of active hostilities, and yet it did not 
usher in a period of perfect peace, harmony and confidence. In 

9 



the United States indignation was aroused because practices con- 
tinued which it had been hoped the war would bring to an end. 
Vessels were again boarded and searched ; Indians were corrupted 
by British presents; life and property along the western frontier 
were endangered by savages generally believed to be emboldened 
by British intriguers ; the American Northwestern fur trade was 
almost monopolized by foreigners ; and increased difficulty was 
experienced in persuading the tribes to surrender their lands and 
make room for the American farmer and merchant. 

The Treaty of Ghent stipulated that the United States should 
restore to the Indians with whom they had been at war all the 
possessions, rights and privileges which the Indians had enjoyed 
or been entitled to in 1811, previous to the outbreak of the war.* 
These "possessions, rights and privileges" were variously inter- 
preted by the United States, the Indians, and the British. During 
the negotiations at Ghent the British plenipotentiaries, asserting 
that the Indians "must in some sort be considered as an independent 
people," endeavored to create a kind of Indian state in the Old 
Northwest which would form a barrier between the United States 
and Canada.*' When they failed in this attempt to creat a bufifer 
state they insisted on having the Indians specially mentioned and 
protected by the contracting parties. The British wanted to provide 
for the welfare of the tribes who had helped them in the war, but 
they also had in mind the protection of the Canadas and perhaps 
were influenced not a little by the desire to have a share in the 
profits of the fur trade. The result was that the British continued 
to be very friendly with the Indians residing within the jurisdiction 
of the United States, and Americans complained that much of the 
Indian discontent was due to the sympathy and support which 
Canadian agents extended to the tribes. 

In Canada also there was restlessness. Almost unaided the 
loyalists had held the enemy at bay for three years. Now they 
saw their prosperity and progress hampered by ill-advised and un- 
intelligent regulations. They censured the London Colonial office 
for exploiting the colonies, for placing friends in fat salaried si- 
necures, for maintaining an irresponsible, superimposed, provincial 
government, for fixing trade and tariff laws to favor English 
merchants or manufacturers, for hindering American imnii;,', rants 



"Am. State Papers, For. Rel., Vol. III. p. 745 flf. 
Hhid., p. 706. 

10 



from entering and developing the natural resources of Canada, 
for sacrificing Canadian interests in commercial conventions and 
boundary line awards, in short for being either ignorant of or in- 
different to provincial needs and desires. Canadian soldiers de- 
serted, and colonists left Canada for the western states. The 
English suspected American immigrants and feared American de- 
mocracy. There was danger in the spread of republican principles 
lest the loyal inhabitants of the British colonies should shake off 
their allegiance to the mother country in order to enjov greater 
political liberty and economic prosperity. British administrative 
officers were cognizant of dissatisfaction in the Canadas and be- 
lieved that the United States was in part responsible for this.<= 

The close of the three years' war was therefore followed by a 
period wherein there arose many a matter relative to the Canadas 
which was international in scope and which became the subject of 
discussion and negotiation between the United States and the United 
Kingdom. It is with these international events that the following 
chapters have to deal. 

•^Durham's Report, p. 41. 



11 



II. 

THE MICHIGAN FRONTIER IN 1815. 

The first serious engagements of the war had been at or near 
Detroit and Amherstburg. Here, too, among the frontiersmen so 
recently withdrawn from the battlefield, and among a savage race 
who hated the Long Knives for encroaching upon their lands, the 
ugly demon of discord lingered the longest, ever threatening to 
bring about a renewal of the strife. The Treaty of Ghent provided 
for the speedy and mutual surrender of all posts captured during 
the war. But the first fort surrendered — Fort Niagara — was not 
vacated by the British till May 22nd, 181 5, and the delivery of 
Fort Michillimackinac was delayed until late in the summer. This 
tardiness on the part of the British was one of the first matters 
causing trouble.^ 

In the case of Fort Michillimackinac the British Charge d'Afifaires 
had requested extra time, a request granted by President Madison 
because there were no buildings available on the British shores of 
Northern Lake Huron for the reception of the British garrison. 
As a matter of fact, however, no haste was made in erecting the 
buildings ; it had been the habit of the British in America to hold 
what they already possessed ; but Drummond, the commanding 
officer in Canada, cannot be held entirely responsible for the delay 
in ordering the departure of McDouall and his garrison from this 
island. As soon as he heard the terms of the treaty, he gave the 
American officers to understand that it was his anxious wish 
"scrupulously to fulfill all the conditions of the treaty" as far as 
they depended upon him, and, only the "absolute necessity of pre- 
paring a cover" in his own territory for the reception of his 
Majesty's troops and stores in that quarter would cause him to 
leave McDouall at Michillimackinac.- His sincerity in this is 
demonstrated by a letter dated a little later in which he informed 
Bathurst that the American government had issued instructions 
not to give up the post at Maiden until a simultaneous restitution 
should be made of the post at Michillimackinac and therefore he 
had "instantly addressed a letter to Lieutenant Colonel McDouall" 



•Drummond to Bathurst, 0. A. Q. 133, p. 5. 

»Harvey to Murray, April 6, 1815, C. A. Q. 132, p. 10. 

12 



ordering the "immediate removal" of his garrison "apprehensive 
that delay in the evacuation of that island might afford grounds 
of complaint on the part of the American nation/'^ At the 
same time he communicated with Baker, the British minister at 
Washington, requesting him to "impress the American government 
with the assurance of his determination to fulfill the conditions of 
the treaty of peace. "^ For the tardiness in leaving Michigan, 
Baker, not Drummond, was primarily responsible. He knew what 
Drummond was as yet unaware of — the War Department at Wash- 
ington on April 29, 181 5. had directed their military forces to be 
continued upon the same establishment as they had stood at the 
close of hostilities/' and for this reason he sent instructions to 
procrastinate until definite reports should come from his home 
government regarding the delivery of the fort and island. Upon 
receipt of Baker's letter, Drummond countermanded all previous 
orders.** It is apparent therefore that it was Baker's intervention 
and a knowledge of the action taken by the American War 
Department that caused the delay. But British traders and those 
who wished to retain an influence over the Indians also pleaded 
for procrastination. 

The Northwest Company urged Drummond not to deliver 
Michillimackinac until compelled to do so by positive instructions, 
and at any rate, not to allow American custom houses to be estab- 
lished on the island while the British garrison remained there. 
They said the Indian trade was "on the point of annihilation unless 
the stipulation in the Treaty of Ghent to preserve Indian rights" 
was meant to exclude military posts and custom houses of either 
nation from the territory then occupied by the tribes^. Drummond's 
reply to this company was that they should make representations 
to His Majesty's government if they deemed it needful ; but mean- 
while he himself made certain concessions. He told McDouall to 
allow no custom houses on the island so long as the British remained 
there and to consult the company in the selection of a new post^. 
This trading company had pleaded hard to get the British to keep 
the Americans away from their trading centres. They urged that 
if the British forces were withdrawn from the island, such with- 



'Drummond to Bathurst, May 20, 1815, C. A. Q. 132, p. 104. 

*Ibid. 

"Ibid. 

•Drummond to Bathurst, April 2.5. 1815, C. A. Q. 132, p. 18. 

'N. W. Company to Drummond, April 20, C. A. Q. 132, p. 25. 

^Harvey to Richardson and McGillivray, April 24, 1815, 0. A. Q. 132, p. 32. 

13 



drawal should be on the condition that no force from the United 
States should occupy it, nor any civil authority of that country be 
established there, until after the decision of the boundary com- 
missioners had been g-iven^. 

It was in the interests of both the military officers and the trading 
companies to retain the good will of the Indians and it was well 
known that the Indian warrior and hunter would show the greater 
respect to the party that would display the greater force. The 
United States realized this as vividly as did the Canadians. Graham, 
an American agent, hoped that the evacuation of the western coasts 
by the British forces would have the effect of inducing the Indians 
to seek an early and satisfactory termination of all differences with 
his countrymen^". Harrison and other American officers were 
carefully warned to explain to the Indians why Michillimackinac 
was not given up, so as to give the British no advantage over the 
United States in relation to the Indian, and so as to beget a just 
confidence in the power as well as the resolution of the American 
government to maintain its rights against every opposition". 

It was impossible, however, for the British to procrastinate very 
long without overtaxing the patience of the Americans. Moreover, 
Drummond seems to have desired to live up to the temis of the 
treaty as far as it lay within his power. On July i8, 1815, Michilli- 
mackinac was handed over to the American officers and one source 
of trouble was removed. 

The most fruitful and long enduring source of annoyance, never- 
theless, still remained. The British were loath to sever their con- 
nections with the tribes residing within the territorial limits of the 
United States, and, in spite of American remonstrance and resist- 
ance, British agents still gave presents to the red men. Was it a 
sense of moral duty or of gratitude for those who had assisted them 
in the late war that prompted the British to dole out annual presents 
and extend favors to the children of the forest? Was it the shrewd- 
ness of the British trader who aimed at extending his business? 
Or was this policy a precautionary measure on the part of the 
British imperialist and military officer, who wished to retain an ally 
for a future service? The British, as we shall see later, claimed 
that gratitude for services rendered was the reason for any favors 
shown to the Indians ; but whatever may have been the motives, 



•N. W. Company to Drummond, April 20, 1815, O. A. Q. 132, p. 25. 

'"Graham to Harrison, July 12, 1815, A. S. P., I. A., II, p. 15. 

"Dallas to Harrison, McArthur, and Graham, June 9, 1815, A. S. P., I. A., II, p. 13. 

14 



no sooner had the Treaty of Ghent been announced than Prevost, 
administrator of affairs in Canada, issued an address which de- 
clared that presents should continue to be given to his dusky allies. 
He ordered Drummond to select a deputation of regular officers or 
members of the Indian Department, send them immediately to Bur- 
lington Heights, Saquina Bay. Michillimackinac, Green Bay and 
Prairie du Chien, call the Indians together at these points, and tell 
them that the Good Spirit had "moved the heart of their Great 
Father beyond the Great Lakes to give peace to the nations ;" that 
peace had been made with the last enemy, and the Indian had not 
been forgotten; that according to promises already given these 
children were to have all the rights possessed by them before the 
war ; this meant that they were to return to their lands, plant their 
corn, and hunt the deer ; traders would bring them their supplies as 
formerly, and special care would be taken that the presents should 
be sent to the frontier posts and should not be diminished ; peace 
it was hoped would last forever ; but if it were broken, it would 
be by the fault of the Long Knives for the heart of their father was 
spotless. ^^ 

Thus Prevost promised peace and presents. Monroe, on the other 
hand, with much less tact promised peace and posts. Clark, 
Edwards, and Chouteau were told to make treaties with the Indian 
tribes, to confine these treaties to the sole objects of peace, but at 
the same time to avail themselves of the opportunity to inform 
the Indian tribes that it was intended to establish strong posts very 
high up the Mississippi, and from the Mississippi to Lake Michigan, 
and to open trading houses at these posts or other suitable places 
for their accommodation.^^ The very mention of posts was objec- 
tionable to the Indians. In the United States territory the Indian 
saw the British only as a trader and friend, never as one taking up 
his land and encroaching upon his hunting grounds. 

In order to placate the Indians the Washington authorities ordered 
their agents in the Northwest Territories to explain that the "policy 
of introducing factories and military stations generally into the 
Indian territory" was really in the interests of the Indian. The 
chain of outposts from Chicago along the Illinois to St. Louis was 
intended not only to guard against encroachments upon the property 
and people of the United States, but to aid and protect the Indian, 



"Prevost to Bathurst, C. A. Q. 131, p. 75, March 13, 1815. 

"Monroe to Clark, Edwards, and Chouteau, March 11, 1815, A. S. P., I. A., II, p. 6. 

15 



to furnish him suppHes, to aflFord him an occasional asylum, to give 
him an opportunity to claim redress for grievances, or to com- 
municate intelligence of any danger he might apprehend at home 
or abroad.** But neither the President's explanations, nor his 
presents which he also found it expedient to grant, appeased the 
tribes. The Indian looked to the British colonies for help and the 
Canadian authorities were often only too eager to encourage the 
Indian to do so. 

The Canadians, however, were not the only ones responsible for 
the Indian trouble. Subordinates in the employ of the American 
government seem to have been fond of using threats of force 
rather than employing that "skillful cajolery" which would obtain 
the same ends with less friction. At Green Bay it was reported 
by the Indians that American agents had made boisterous threats 
to seize lands which the Indians claimed to be their own and which 
they refused to sell. In such resistance as this the Indians knew 
where to find sympathy. Even Drummond hastened to acquaint 

Bathurst that he was "concerned that there appeared 

a strong indication on the part of the American government to 

violate the existing treaty as far as related to the 

infringement of Indian territories."*'^ He had heard of a strong 
American force having been sent to establish forts at Green Bay. 
Chicago, Prairie du Chien, and at the Falls of St. Anthony and that 
the plans to do so were openly reported. Under pretext of calling 
a numerous council of Indians to make peace, the intention, he said, 
seemed to be to destroy the tribes who would surrender their lands in 
these parts ; and Major Morgan, an American officer commanding 
at Michillimackinac, had frankly admitted to Lieutenant Colonel 
McDouall that the American forces had "no right to occupy Indian 
territory or to construct forts upon it which they did not possess 
before the war, but that still it was determined upon and should 
be done!"'" General Brown, Drummond said, was hourly expected 
with a strong body of men on his way to Michillimackinac to carry 
out these designs. Certainly the Indians believed that their lands 
and rights were being unjustly trespassed upon and the Northwest 
Company supported them in this belief.*^ 



"Dallas to Harrison, June 9, 1815, A. S. P., I. A., II, p. 13. 

'i'Druramoncl to Bathurst, August 27, 1815, O. A. Q. 133, p. 82. 

'"Ibid. 

"McGillivray to Harvey, April 17, 1815, C. A. Q. 132, p. 35. 

16 



The first serious dispute was at Green Bay ; it was there that the 
Indians refused to sell their lands. The few white or mixed settlers 
in that place were exclusively French or P.ritish, and we may be 
sure that these people were not enthusiastic in urging the Indians 
to comply with American demands. At Prairie du Chien. where 
another dispute arose, the Northwestern Company vigorously sup- 
ported the Indians/^ This place had not been occupied by Amer- 
icans before the war and therefore the Company maintained that 
the rights of the Indian should be as in 1811. Previous to the war 
the most advanced post of the United States in this region was 
Fort Madison on the Mississippi, some four hundred miles south 
of Prairie du Chien. During the war a stockade had been built at 
Prairie du Chien and this had fallen into the hands of an American 
force but had been recaptured by British and Indians. At the 
close of the war when other forts were given up. no restitution was 
made of this one on the ground that it was Indian territory — not 
a part of the United States— and had not been included in the gen- 
eral surrender of posts.^" When the Americans, therefore, now 
attempted to erect a trading post and a military station at Prairie 
du Chien. the Indians and the Northwest Company objected, de- 
claring that without previous purchase and express permission no 
one had a right to take possession of the place. Quasi sovereign 
rights were claimed for the Indians ; and they, resenting the prox- 
imity of soldiers and settlers, appealed to their father across the 
ocean for protection. Native warriors were thus zealously trying 
to block the westward march of the Americans and were encouraged 
to do so by the foreign traders. 

The President's agents were fully aware of these facts. '"The 
commotion of the Indians about Prairie du Chien and the failure 
of the Winnebagoes, Menomonies, and the Chippewas to meet the 
Americans in council," wrote Clark, Edwards, and Chouteau, *'is 
thought by most intelligent white men as well as by most respectable 
friendly Indians to be the result of the immense presents which 
the British government have lately distributed to the constant 
intrigues of British traders who certainly have a greater quantity 
of merchandise on the Mississippi at present than they have ever 
had in any former year. They are making the greatest efforts to 
retain their influence and to engross the whole of the trade."^^ 



"McGillivray to Harvey, April 17, 1815, C. A. Q. 132, p. 35. 

"Kingsford, IX, p. 70. . c, t, t . tt r> 

"Letter of Clark, Edwards, and Chouteau, Oct. 18, 181o, A. S. P., I. A. II, p. 9. 

17 



Clark and his two companions also blamed the ''contemptible British 
trader" for the trouble they were having with the Sacs and Foxes.-' 
Another American Indian agent declared that "every British trader 
among the Indians is a political partisan, sowing the seeds of 
distrust and dislike against the government and people of the United 
States. It was through this description of persons that all the plans 
of the late Indian war were laid, matured, and brought into opera- 
tion."-^ From Fort Wayne it was reported that even the kindness 
of the United States had been misinterpreted and that enemies had 
persuaded many Indians to believe that the United States permitted 
goods to be sold on credit so that later these land-grabbers might 
seize the lands in payment for unpaid debts. -'^ 

In a treaty with several tribes in the fall of 1815 special pains 
vv<^re taken to ofTset this reported intriguing. Emphasis was laid 
upon the assertion that the United States were really taking care 
of the tribes, that British intercourse was entirely a matter of in- 
dulgence, and that it must not be believed for a moment that Great 
Britain had obtained any special benefits for them.-^ But intriguing 
did not cease. Eight years later the British traders in the farther 
West were accused of continuing this same kind of influence. 
Major O'Fallon, a man who, according to the National Intelligencer 
of St. Louis, enjoyed a "reputation for penetration" and for an 
"intimate acquaintance with the Indian character," reported that 
many circumstances had transpired to induce a strong belief that 
the Hudson Bay Company was then exciting the Indians to drive 
the Americans from that quarter so as to reap the fruits of Amer- 
ican labor. He had been in hopes, he said, that the British traders 
had some bounds to their rapacity, but, like the greedy wolf, not 
yet gorged with flesh, they guarded the bones, they ravaged the 
fields, and, not satisfied with participating in the Indian trade, they 
had become alarmed at the individual enterprise of American people, 
and were exciting the Indians against them.-^ Such evidence shows 
how bitter was the feeling in the western territories against the 
intrusive foreigner and how this hostility continued long after the 
Treaty of Ghent had declared for a return of friendly intercourse. 



*=A. S. p., I. A. II p. 910. 

^Letter of John Johnston, Agent, Piqua, Sept. 6, 1815, A. S. P., I. A. II, p. 83. 

"Stickney to Crawford, Oct. 1, 1815, A. S. P., I. A. II, p. 85. 

^oTreaty, Sept. 8, 1815, with tribes In Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan, A. S. P., I. A. II, 
p. 13. 

^'National Intelligencer, Aug. 10, 182a, C. A. G. 222. 

18 



Not only the British trader in general, but the British agents at 
Amherstburg in particular were constantly exciting the ill will of 
their neighbors across the river. In the summer of 1815 Harrison, 
McArthur and Graham, American commissioners, called a council 
of Indians at Detroit to inform them of the provisions of the Treaty 
of Ghent and to "concert with them the proper measures for carry- 
ing the same into effect." -^ This meeting was called for August 
25th, 1815, but the invitation did not produce the desired effect. 
The Indians did not come. The commissioners were told that the 
Indians had been detained by the British agents. A request was 
therefore made to the senior officer at Maiden to take "measures 
to give full effect to the 9th article of the Treaty of Ghent," and 
Major Langham was sent to deliver this request. While in the 
discharge of this duty Langham felt that he had been rudely re- 
ceived by the Canadian officers and returned in high dudgeon .1 
Harrison. The Americans were now doubly irritated. Their own 
Indians had been induced to stay away from the council and an 
officer had been insulted. 

Barracks, temporarily in command at Maiden, and Lieutenant 
Colonel James, who had been absent when Langham arrived, sent 
replies to Harrison's note. They declared that the Indians were 
a free and independent people at liberty to act for themselves and 
"had considered it a matter of greater importance to attend the 
Council ordered to assemble in Amberstburg on the 26th instant 
for the explaining of the articles of the Treaty of Ghent." No 
inducements, they said, were held out to detain the Indians but it 
was not surprising if Indians on the left bank had not crossed over 
when pains had so recently been taken to prevent any one of them 
from ever passing over. Barracks was "unable to account for the 
mysterious conduct" of Langham.-" 

The curtness and general tone of the British replies was suf- 
ficient to make Harrison still more indignant. After calling atten- 
tion to the discourteous reception of his aide, and the hasty reading 
or misinterpretation of his first note. Harrison wrote James that he 
had never asked the British to compel the Indians to cross to the 
Council at Detroit — as Barracks had intimated — and it was to be 
regretted that the British had not explained the terms of the treaty 



"Harrison, McArthur, and Graham to the commanding officer at Maldon, Aug. 26, 1815, 
A. S. P., I. A. II, p. 15. 

"Barracks to Harrison, Aug. 27, 1815, A. S. P., I. A. II, 15. James to Harrison, 
Aug. 29, 1815, I. A. II, 15. 

19 



much earlier and so have prevented, perhaps, Indian depredations, 
vexatious and injurious to American citizens, and troublesome to 
the British themselves. Cass, he said, was now trying to prevent 
these depredations by limiting intercourse with his people but it 
was never intended to prohibit Indians from crossing the inter- 
national boundary.^^ 

Such letters and such actions are typical of the state of affairs 
in this district all through the year 1815. Even if James did not 
willfully try to hamper Harrison, undoubtedly he would have been 
better pleased if the Indians had not gone to the American councils. 
It looked suspiciously like an effort to exert influence, when he 
called an Indian meeting on the Canadian side at the very time 
set by the Americans for their council. If the civil or military 
authorities in Canada were desirous of maintaining friendly inter- 
course with their American neighbors in the Amherstburg district 
— and all evidence seems to point in favor of such desire — then 
a man less adapted to foster peace and harmony could scarcely 
have been found than Lieutenant Colonel James, the commanding 
officer in that district. 

But if James and his subordinates were trying to cater to the 
red men. it is evident that the American officers had no thought of 
retreating. Harrison persisted in his efforts to gather the Indians 
before him, though forced to postpone this meeting from day to 
day until the council on the other side of the river had been dis- 
solved. At last when his patience had been partly rewarded, he 
endeavored to make up for lost time by vigorously berating the 
British and extolling the virtues and bravery of his own country- 
men. He told the prophet and other red men in the assemblies that 
their late British father had acknowdedged his error and had agreed 
to make peace ; that the British had been defeated in the war with 
the Americans, and in Europe they had not been unassisted in their 
victorious struggle against Napoleon ; other nations had cooperated 
with them ; that in America the British agents had seduced the 
chiefs and warriors from their duties to the United States and 
were now deceiving them ; that their great father at Washington 
was their only true friend and wanted peace and prosperity and 
happiness to continue among his children.^- 



"Harrison to James, Aug. 30, 1815, A. S. P., I. A. II, p. 15, 16. 
"Harrison's Speech, A. S. P., I. A. II, p. 20, 25. See p. 18, 19 also. 

20 



Harrison was not alone in complaining against British officers 
during this first year of peace. United States Secretary of State 
Adams reported to Earl Bathurst of the British Colonial office that 
a British colonel, Nicholls, "after the conclusion of the peace, 
actually concluded a pretended treaty of alliance, offensive and 
defensive against the United States. "^^ Bathurst expressed him- 
self in terms of unqualified disapprobation at this pseudo treaty. 
It had not been, he said, approved of, for no such treaty could be 
made by Great Britain. In this action of Nicholls there is one of 
the first instances after the war of a colonial officer's clashing 
with the desire of the British government. It must be kept in mind 
that the actions of the British frontier officers were not always in 
harmony with the will of the home government ; at all events the 
Colonial Office more than once disclaimed any part in incidents 
that caused offense to the goverment at Washington. 

In October of this same year serious Jrouble was threatened from 
two other sources. On the morning of October 5, Richardson, 
surgeon and justice of the peace of the Western District of Upper 
Canada, a man who apparently bore no love for the Americans, 
officially reported to James that an "unprovoked and most wanton 
act of violence," namely the killing of an Indian, had been com- 
mitted the day before by a number of Americans near Grosse 
Island. Some Indians had gone to the island "to shoot squirrels," 
when they w-ere approached by the Americans, "damned, told to 
embark immediately, which they did," and were then fired upon, 
the shot resulting in the death of one of their number the next 
morning.^* James immediately wrote to Cass, briefly informing 
him that an Indian had been "murdered under the most aggravated 
circumstances" by eight or ten Americans, including an officer who 
was with them at the time the cruel act was perpetrated. Then, in 
language most untactful. and which Cass was justified in con- 
sidering offensive, he continued: "I need not point out to you 

the line of conduct necessary on this occasion, my 

pointing out to you the custom of savages in the present instance 
would be needless." ^^' Even if the Indian had really been wantonly 
murdered and if it had occurred within British territory, both of 
which we may presume James had been led to suppose, such a 
message was unnecessary and ungentlemanly. Cass replied with 



33Adams to Castlereagh, March 21, 1816, C. A. ft. 138, p. 215. 
"Richardson to James, Oct. 5, C. A. Q. 319, p. 199. 
^James to Cass, Oct. 5, C. A. Q. 319, p. 181. 

21 



dignity and firmness : he would make inquiry ; if Americans were 
guilty, American courts of justice would operate with rigid im- 
partiality ; a person would be sent over to attend the inquest in 
order to procure evidence.^*' But he incidentally reminded James 
that some suggestions he had made in his note were unnecessary. 

At the coroner's inquest, held October 6th, sworn evidence of 
two of the Indians who were with Akochis, the deceased, showed 
that some five Kickapoo Indians had been innocently hunting 
squirrels on the island and were about to embark for Amherstburg 
when ten American soldiers, one of them apparently an officer, 
approached and asked the Kickapoos if they were British subjects. 
When answered in the affirmative, they motioned the Indians to 
leave the island. This command was immediately obeyed but as 
soon as they had pushed off their canoe, one of the Americans 
loaded his gim. The officer spoke to him and endeavored to grasp 
the gun, but before this could be done, the soldier had fired, 
wounding Akochis in the back. The coroner's jury declared 
Akochis to have been murdered "feloniously, willfully, and with 
malice aforethought by an unknown person supposed to be an 
American." ^" 

It must be noticed that the coroner's jury simply stated that 
this murder occurred in the waters of the Detroit River, apparently 
indifferent whether the scene of the shooting was in American or 
British territory or else willfully concealing the fact that it was on 
the American side of what was then generally considered to be 
the dividing line. It must also be noticed that the American 
soldiers had not been heard in self-defense. The evidence of the 
savages delivered through an interpreter was all that the jury had 
upon which to base their verdict of willful murder. 

The next day Cass again wrote to James stating that he had 
"ascertained with precision the circumstances of the transaction." 
The Indian, he said, was killed while in the act of presenting his 
gun to McComb, the officer referred to by James. The event was 
connected with the predatory system which the Indians had pursued 
for some time on the Island and which the American soldiers were 
trying to check. Since the shooting had occurred within the ter- 
ritorial jurisdiction of the United States, a British officer had con- 
sequently no right to require nor ought an American officer to give 



*"Cas8 to James, Oct. 5, C. A. Q. 319, p. 182. 

*'James to Robinson, Oct. 16, 1815, C. A. Q. 319, p. 179. 

22 



any explanation upon the subject.'* Cass then sent an officer, 
McDougall, to hold a personal interview with James, because, as 
reported by the latter, "letters are apt to lead to rancour and 
personal interviews avoid it." ^^ Cass, evidently, was unwilling 
to allow this unfortunate incident to lead to further trouble, but 
James was not of so peaceful a temperament. 

According to IMcComb's testimony, and surely his testimony 
ought to bear at least equal weight with that of a savage, these 
Indians had been killing his cattle on the island. He ordered the 
marauders to leave the island and they had just pushed off from 
the shore when one of them aimed his gun at him. A soldier stand- 
ing by, noticing the danger, quickly drew his gun and shot the 
Indian. This story is more probably the true one. but both James 
and the magistrates jumped recklessly at conclusions, impelled by 
the spirit of vengeance rather than wisdom. Paying no attention 
to the letter from Cass, James, on October 12th, requested the 
justices of the peace to "take such steps and measures" as would 
most likely protect the British subjects as well as those entitled to 
and claiming that protection.*^ Accordingly on the 18th of October, 
there was issued, most imprudently on the part of the British officers 
concerned, a proclamation offering $500 reward if the murderer 
were secured in some one of His Majesty's jails in Upper Canada. 

Three days later James received a letter from Caldwell, Deputy 
Superintendent of British-Indian affairs, which caused more trouble. 
The Prophet had complained to Caldwell that a few days after the 
death of Akochis, some American had stolen from Stony Island — 
an island near Amherstburg — eight horses and a colt belonging to 
the Kickapoos ; the Indians, Caldwell said, wanted James to demand 
a return of the horses.'*- James wrote a brief note to Cass enclos- 
ing Caldwell's letter and intimating that he had no doubt that Cass 
would see to the restitution of the property because, when a similar 
case had occurred the last summer, the United States officer had 
been good enough to return the stolen property. 

Cass' reply to James showed not only impatience but a deter- 
mination not to budge from what he considered the rights of the 
United States. In no ambiguous terms he told James to attend to 
his own affairs and cease meddling with matters purely beyond 



^Cass to James, Oct. 7, 1815, C. A. jQ. 319, p. 184. 
^''Let'.er written bv Lt. Col. James. C. A. Q. 319, p. 186. 
*'Kichard.son to James, Oct. 12, 1815, C. A. Q. 319, p. 204. 
«Caldwell to James, Oct. 21, 1815, C. A. Q. 319, p. 212. 

23 



British jurisdiction. Stony Island, he said, was in the territory of 
the United States ; the horses had been taken from there, not to 
Canada, but to Michigan ; consequently, a British officer had no 
right to interfere ; "the jurisdiction of the United States and of 
Great Britain within their territorial limits was exclusive ;" he would 
not "acknowledge in principle nor ever admit in practice" the right 
of any foreign authority to interfere in any arrangement or dis- 
cussions between them and the Indians living within his territory. 
He was inclined to impute the conduct of Caldwell in interfering 
either to a "profound ignorance of the relative rights of nations 
or to a more artful though less pardonable motive, that of preserv- 
ing an influence over the Indians to be used as subsequent events 
might render expedient." The letter concluded with the statement 
that the United States courts of justice had made inquiries con- 
cerning the particular case referred to by Caldwell ; one horse 
belonged to a citizen of Detroit, the others would be returned to 
the Indians ; but this information was given as a personal favor 
to James, for American officers were under no compulsion to render 
an account to a foreign power under the circumstances.^^ 

Cass' fighting spirit was fully aroused. The next day he issued 
a proclamation to counteract the reward offered by the magistrates 
of Upper Canada for the appreliension of the murderer of Akochis. 
He called attention to the fact that the killing had occurred wholly 
within the jurisdiction of the United States and was a matter, there- 
fore, that concerned the United States alone ; and in order that 
British pretensions so unfounded might be resisted and that. attempts 
so unjustifiable might be repelled ; that the people of his territory 
might not be transported to a foreign country for acts committed 
in his territory ; that the Indians residing within the United States 
might not be taught to look to the agents of another country for 
protection and redress which American laws so fully afforded ; and 
that a foreign influence incompatible with the sovereignty of the 
United States might not be acquired and exercised over them, he 
required all persons, citizens of his territory or residing therein, to 
repel by force all attempts which might be made to apprehend any 
person on the American side of the dividing line.^* 

It will be noticed that one of the principal things Cass was trying 
to break up was the foreign influence over the Indians of Mich- 



"Oass to James, Oct. 26, 1815, C. A. Q. 319, p. 214. 
"Proclamation, Oct. 27, O. A. iQ. 319, p. 306. 

24 



igan.'*^ If James had been trying: to exert undue interference in 
affairs beyond his jurisdiction, he found himself properly check- 
mated by Cass. In a letter a few days later, however, James 
defended his interference by taking "the liberty to remind" Cass 
that the Treaty of Ghent amply provided for the Indians who had 
lately been in alliance with Great Britain and that even those tribes 
whose country extended as far as the Mississippi were included 
in the treaty, and looked to England for a fulfillment of that solemn 
agreement.*^ Surely James must have recognized that the Treaty 
of Ghent could never have justified him in all his claims and 
actions. 

Meanwhile he had reported the whole affair to his superior ofiicer, 
Major General Sir Frederick Robinson, adding that little friendly 
intercourse existed between the American and British officers in 
that district because every time British officers were from curiosity 
induced to cross to the opposite shore, the visit was attended by 
some act of insult, whereas American officers on the Canadian shore 
were treated with the greatest respect.*^ James later reported to 
Robinson that it was evident that Governor Cass intended to cut 
off all British communication and traffic with the western Indians 
and that if this effort succeeded, the Indians would become allies 
of the United States, and if so, Canada would be lost. It is perfectly 
plain that James preferred the good will of the Indian to that of the 
United States.*^ 

Drummond, the Governor in Lower Canada, also received infor- 
mation from James concerning the killing of Akochis, and as this 
was his only source of information, he was persuaded that it was 
a "wanton murder and an inhuman outrage," and, therefore, he 
trusted that Gore, Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada, would 
demand the "strongest remonstrance from the American govern- 
ment." *^ Gore, on the other hand, had heard both sides of the 
question and with a calm, sane judgment and with that conciliatory 
spirit usually displayed by the central authorities on both sides, he 
deplored the part played by James, Caldwell and the magistrates 



""The tenor and object of their [British] measures is to teach the Indians to look 
to them for protection." Cass in letter to Monroe — see A. H. A. Reports, 1888, 
p. 77. 

<«James to Cass, Nov. 1, 1815, C. A. Q. 319, p. 218. 

"At this very time an American officer at Detroit had just written to Baltimore com- 
mending the great civility with which the niilit.nry oflicors and men treated each 
other on both sides of the animosity which he believed existed between the 
citizens of Michigan and Canada. Niles Reg. IX, p. 188. 

"James to Robinson, Oct. 16, C. A. Q. 319, p. 179. 

"Drummond to Gore, Nov. 25, 1815, O. A. Q. 319, p. 177. 

20 



of the Western District. To him it was most obvious, from the 
despositions taken, that the homicide was committed in the territory 
of the United States. He regretted the fact that the coroner's 
verdict seemed to have been drawn up with a view to conceal this, 
and conceahnent could have been designed only to cover the extraor- 
dinary measure of the proclamation and the reward oflfered by 
those magistrates. He blamed James for not adopting a more 
conciliatory policy and ordered all further discussions to be carried 
on between His Majesty's minister at Washington and the govern- 
ment of the United States.^" Luckily for the interests of peace 
Gore's influence prevailed, and luckily, too, no attempt was made to 
earn the $500 reward. The "border warfare" arising out of these 
two particular questions was transferred from Detroit and Am- 
herstburg to Washington and London. 

Meanwhile, however, the press in sections of the United States 
interested in the West, and unfriendly to Britain, was discussing the 
action of these Western magistrates. The Pittsburg Mercury 
called upon Congress to take action. The afifairs at Detroit, it said, 
afforded "evidence of the hostile disposition of the British com- 
manding officer towards the American government and people," 
and these transactions showed the length to which he was disposed 
to go and "furnished unequivocal testimony of a desire in the 
British authorities to cherish and promote among the savages dis- 
positions hostile to the United States to be employed as future 
events (might) render necessary; the pompous interference of His 
Majesty's agents were designed to give the untutored savages 
exalted ideas of the friendship, the power, and the dignity of the 
British government and to make that government appear to them 
as the avenger of their wrongs ; these circumstances connected with 
the preparations being made by the British government throughout 
the whole length of the Canadian lines, loudly called for preparations 
also on the part of the United States." -^^ 

Sufficient pressure was brought to bear upon Congress to induce 
John Quincy Adams to enter in the spring of 1816 a formal com- 
plaint against the British military officers in America. He asserted 
that these officers "labored with an activity as restless and a zeal 
as ardent as they could have done in the heat of war" to instigate 
Indians to continued or renewed hostility. The proceedings of 



"Gore to Baker, Dec. 26, 1815, O. A. Q. 319, p. 174. 

"Pittsburg Mercury, quotation in Niles, IX., p. 241. Dec. 2, 1815. 

26 



James and of the magistrates in Upper Canada bore such a strong 
resemblance to those of Colonel Nicholls that he hoped they would 
receive the same disapproval and disavowal by His Majesty's gov- 
ernment. He trusted also that the British government would issue 
such orders that no doubt would be left on the minds of American 
officers that the intention towards the United States was peace."^^- 

Adams' protest appears to have borne immediate results. Gov- 
ernor Sherbrooke, who came to Canada in July, 1816, at once sent 
instructions to his subordinates to repress by every means in their 
power the hostile disposition of the Indians towards the Amer- 
icans,-'^ ordered no presents to be sent to the United States Indians 
and directed the Superintendent of Indian Affairs to adhere strictly 
to these regulations.'* Gore also concurred w^ith Sherbrooke in 
this policy. 

Meanwhile another source of trouble had caused irritation along 
the frontier. Sailors were abandoning British vessels on the Great 
Lakes as well as at the Atlantic ports, and soldiers were deserting 
from British regiments. Americans were blamed for not only entic- 
ing these deserters but for preventing their recovery. ■'''*° Soon after 
the peace was proclaimed Drummond tried to recall his runaways 
by issuing a proclamation pardoning all such who would return 
to their former regiments before July 7, 1815.'"'^ But this pardon 
was not sufficient. More money and better opportunities could be 
found under the American flag, if not as a soldier, then as citizen.''* 

In the various controversies caused by frequent desertions of 
British soldiers and sailors neither side was blameless. In one 
instance several sailors deserted together, and landed about ten 
miles from Detroit. They were followed by a crew of officers and 
men who disembarked, examined several houses, and at length 
seized one man and sent him to the Canadian side. Then they 
placed sentinels on the American highway, one of whom fired on a 
citizen. These events angered the people of Detroit, who flew to 
arms and arrested both the officers and the men. Later it was 
agreed to release all except one officer who was to be held until 
the men already sent to Canada should be returned. The officer 



"Adams to Castlereagh, March 21, 1816, C. A. iQ. 138, p. 215. 

■"Sherbrooke to Bathurst, July 15, 1816, C. A. Q. 136, p. 7. 

''^Sherbrooke to Bathurst. July 20, 1816, 0. A. Q. 137, p. 157. 

''■'o"Not a vessel arrives at New York from this country without her crew being 

immediatelv seduced into the American service." From a London paper — Niles 

Register IX. p. 428, Feb. 1816. 
""Kingsford, IX, p. 31. 
"Glenelg to Head, C. A. G., p. 79. 

27 



was put in an American fort and James was requested to release 
his prisoner but refused to do so. The captive-officer was tried in 
Detroit, fined $400 or $500 and released, though Chief Justice 
Woodward said he "ought to have been pilloried and imprisoned." " 
On another occasion the bandmaster of the 37th regiment went 
to Detroit to bring back a boy who had deserted, but who afterwards 
had expressed a willingness to return. As soon as the bandmaster 
had made known his errand he was surrounded by a mob and 
escaped only through the friendly intercession of an American 
officer.^'" At another time it was reported that an orderly sent 
to Detroit on business was approached by two who had previously 
deserted and by two American citizens who greeted him with a 
considerable display of cordiality ; these invited him to a dance where 
he should have the privilege of dancing with a "major's daughter," 
and urged him to remain in Detroit wherein he could escape from 
the tyranny of England. A newspaper was thrust into his hand, 
containing an article which declared that 10,000 of the oppressed 
in England were migrating that summer to find freedom in the 
United States. Every artifice, declared James, was used by certain 
classes across the river to entice the British soldiers to that side.^''*' 

It might be considered not unfair tactics for the United States 
marshal to encourage desertion during the war.^* But long after 
the war James found occasions svich as these cited above upon which 
to complain loudly and grievously against both ordinary citizens 
and officers > in Detroit for not only conniving at desertion but for 
openly enlisting deserters in their own army."'^ On March 2, 1816, 
James published a partial list of those who had left his ranks and 
had been enlisted in the United States army. American deserters, 
he said, had ofifered to enter the British service but care had been 
taken to discourage such desertion and it had been the practice 
of British commanders to compel these deserters to leave the 
Canadian frontier within twelve hours.^" 

Bagot called the a^'^ention of Monroe to this practice of admitting 
deserters '"into corps within sight of the regiments they had so 
disgracefully abandoned," **' to which Monroe immediately replied 



"Niles, IX., p. 104, 187, Sept. 1815. 

""Letter of Lt. Col. James, C. A. Q. 138, p. 192. 

O'l'Ibid. 

'^Loring'B Memorandum, Jan. 23, 181.5, C. A. Q. 131, p. 26. 

"James to Robinson, Oct. 16, 1815, C. A. Q. 319, p. 179. 

"C. A. Q. 138, p. 275. 

"Bagot to Monroe, May 24, 1816, C. A. Q. 138, p. 277. 

28 



that such alleged practices were entirely contrary to the general 
orders of the war department and ordered investigations.^^ General 
McComb, writing over three months after James made his com- 
plaints, did not deny the fact that James' charges might be well 
founded. What he did say was that though no recruiting had taken 
place since the war, substitutes were allowed, and deserters might 
have crept in by that means ; however, more stringent rules had 
been passed since his attention was called to this, and "already 
perfect harmony existed between the officers on both sides of the 
line." «3 

Subsequent desertion of soldiers nevertheless was destined to 
interrupt this "perfect harmony." American troops in their turn 
invaded Canadian soil in search of alleged deserters and the corre- 
spondence of these years reveal how difficult, tedious and expensive 
it was to trace fugitives who had escaped from one country into 
the other. In districts sparsely settled and comparatively poorly 
policed a culprit might easily secrete himself and baffle all pursuers. 
Vexatious delays and much ill feeling often arose because of the 
lack of any extradition treaty and such a treaty failed to be agreed 
upon until more than twenty-five years after the war, largely be- 
cause the British government was reluctant to consider anv terms 



t> 



which insisted upon the return of runaway slaves, 



04 



"Bagot to Castlereagh, C. A. Q. 138, p. 273. 

"'McOomb to Monroe, June 20, 181C, C. A. jQ. 138, p. 309. 

•^Richmond to Bagot, Aug. 18, 1818, C. A. Q. 149, p. 78, 90. Richmond t" Bathurst, 
Nov. 19, 1818, C. A. Q. 149, p. 131. Letter of E. T. Throop, July 3, 1882, 
C. A. Q. 223. Vaughan to Dudley, 1828, C. A. Q. 185, p. 208. Clay to Vaughan. 
Jan. 23, 1828, C. A. Q. 185, p. 211. Dalhousie to Bathur.st, Oct. 27, 1821, C. 
A. Q. 157, p. 388. Van Buren to Vaughan, July 21, 1829, C. A. Q. 189. p. 161. 
Vaughan to Kempt, Aug. 1, 1829, C. A. Q. 189, p. 1.51. Hillier to Goulburn, Sept. 
24, 1819, C. A. Q. 326, p. 117. Gleneig to Head, O. A. Q. 83, a demand for the 
return of the slave. See the draft on the Convention sent bv Palnierston to 
Fo.x, April 27, 1840, and the letter of Fox to Poulett Thompson, Sept. 10, 1840, 
C. A. G. 226. 



29 



III. 

NAVAL ARMAMENTS ON THE GREAT LAKES. 

The year 1816 was perhaps the most critical in the first decade 
after the war. The intriguing at the Council, the Indian murder 
and horse stealing incidents, the advance of American settlers and 
military posts, the exclusion of British traders by an act of Con- 
gress and the more or less open sympathy and support of the 
British trader and frontier military officer made the tribes very 
hostile towards the Long Knives. Before we continue the con- 
troversy over Indian affairs, however, we shall take up another 
matter which occupied the attention of the British and Americans 
during the summer of this year. When John Quincy Adams, the 
American ambassador to England, lodged a complaint in March 
against certain actions of James and others, he coupled with this 
note to Castlereagh a proposal to reduce the existing naval arma- 
ments on the Great Lakes, the reductions to be mutual and the 
degree to which they should be made to be left to the action of 
His Majesty's government; but the greater the reduction, the more 
acceptable it would be to the President of the United States and 
most acceptable of all should it be agreed to maintain on either 
side during the peace no other force than such as might be nec- 
essary for the collection of revenue.''* 

This was a very timely proposal. For the continuance of peace 
some such action was necessary because the right of search after 
the Treaty of Ghent was still claimed and practised by the British. 
Western American papers grew very much excited over this prac- 
tice. The Pittsburg Mercury of June, 1816, again took up the 
cudgels and published a series of articles in regard to the arrogant 
conduct of the British on the waters of Lake Erie. The firm and 
dignified remonstrance of Governor Cass, it said, had not been 
sufficient to restrain the practice complained of ; another American 
vessel had been forcibly entered and searched within the waters 
of Put-in-Bay, Ohio ; such insolent conduct could not and would not 
be borne ; the government of the United States must take immediate 
notice of the subject and order into service a sufficient force to 



^*Adams to Castlereagh, March 23, 1819, C. A. Q. 138, p. 220. 

30 



compel respect for the American flag.'"' The Buffalo press ironically 
and sarcastically declared that the firing on the American schooner, 
Mink, near Put-in-Bay by his majesty's schooner was "truly British" 
and "magnanimous ;" and Niles wrote, "The long and short of the 
matter is this — that the insult must and will be atoned for." Niles, 
too, was very much excited over the reported increase of the 
British forces in Canada and the establishing of a more "respectable 
naval force" upon the lakes. Movements of Canadian vessels on 
Lake Ontario made him suspect that the right of search would 
there be exercised as it was on Lake Erie and he also found reason 
to believe that British officers were in most of the seaports of the 
United States, making maps of them and the places adjacent. 
"The danger is not over," he wrote.''* 

During the spring of 1816 complaints and affidavits came officially 
from Cass to the effect that parties of armed men from the British 
war vessel Tecumseh on Lake Erie had boarded several vessels 
belonging to the United States.'^ Baumgardt, the senior British 
captain, was anxious to prevent controversies. He wrote to Captain 
Bourchier, commanding on Lake Erie, regretting that the latter 
had issued orders to search "all vessels passing through the port 
of Amherstburg" and requested that such action should be dis- 
continued. Later in 1816 another complaint of illegal search gave 
rise to diplomatic correspondence. Baumgardt admitted that Bour- 
chier had exceeded his power in searching the American vessel 
and once more he ordered that there should be absolutely no boarding 
or searching of American vessels. However, it was pointed out 
that the complaint had not "proceeded from the master or owner 
of the vessel searched, but from passengers, men of a class ap- 
parently anxious to blow up every trifling occurrence into a flame ;" 
and, moreover, the United States themselves were committing the 
same offense ; for one of their vessels had followed a British boat 
from Niagara to search her for deserters. The whole point of this 
particular incident, Baumgardt said, was the American effort to 
maintain a claim to Bois Blanc, an island near Amherstburg. If 
their ships kept to their own territory they would never have been 
disturbed.'^ 



'^Pittsburg Mercury, July 17, 1816, C. A. Q. 138, p. 337. 

"Niles Register IX., p. 152, Oct. 17, and Oct. 24, 1815, p. 169, Nov. 4, 1815. Niles 
Register XI., p. 30 and 47, Sept. 7 and 14, 1816. 

"Baumgardt to Bourchier, Sept. 5, 1815, C. A. Q. 146, p. 13. 

"Baumgardt to Bagot, C. A. Q. 146, p. 15. 

31 



The commanding naval officers in Canada were not eager for 
strife. The civil authorities had also taken steps to prevent their 
naval force from meddling with American vessels and this action 
on the part of Lieutenant Governor Gore preceded Adams' proposal 
to eliminate the armaments on the lakes. Two days before Adams 
submitted his proposition to the court of Saint James a Canadian 
naval captain, Owen, asked Gore for "unquestionable authority" to 
act as magistrate — in other words to be empowered to arrest smug- 
glers.^" Gore replied that the Great Lakes were open to the United 
States for navigation and the British civil authority was sufficient to 
support the revenue laws.*^ Owen was ordered to cease searching 
public vessels, but he significantly told Gore that "if only the col- 
lector of duties had a right to visit vessels on the Lakes, a new 
feature was thereby given to the naval service. "^^ 

Adams' representation to the British government complaining 
of improper interference on the part of British naval officers re- 
sulted in Bathurst's sending the most positive instructions to Gore 
and to his successor, Sherbrooke, to discourage "all proceedings 
of this nature and to exert their utmost authority and influence to 
maintain within the limits of their government in all communica- 
tions and intercourse with the American authorities and people, a 
line of conduct strictly conformable to the relations of amity and 
friendship so happily existing between the two nations." ^^ The 
friendly disposed Sherbrooke received and communicated these 
orders and heartily tried to enforce them, "because much inter- 
ference was so much at variance with the mtentions of His Majesty's 
government."^* It is clear that, if the British navy on the lakes 
thereafter interfered with American vessels so as to provoke ill 
feeling, it was neither in accordance with the British wishes nor 
with the wishes of the Canadian civil authorities. Almost invariably 
American protests were favorably acted upon by the cabinet in 
London. 

The agreement of April 28, 181 7, to reduce the naval armaments 
went a long way towards removing further trouble.®'^ Henceforth 
the naval force to be maintained upon the lakes, should be confined 
to the following vessels on each side ; on Lake Ontario to one 



"Owen to Gore, March 21, 1816, C. A. Q. 220, p. 218. 
"Gore to Owen, Mav 14, 1816, O. A. Q. 320, p. 212. 
*K)wen to Gore, May 27, 1816, C. A. Q. 138, p. 91. 
"Bathurst to Gore, Sept. 9, 1816, C. A. G. 58. 
•♦Sherbrooke to Bathurst, Nov. 21, 1816, O. A. Q. 137, p. 300. 
•C. A. Q. 146, p. 127. 

32 



vessel not exceeding- lOO tons burden and armed with one eighteen- 
pound cannon ; on the Upper Lakes to two vessels ; and on the 
waters of Lake Champlain to one vessel of the same kind. It was 
stipulated that the other armed vessels on the lakes should be forth- 
with dismantled and if either party should be desirous of annulling 
the stipulation, six months' notice to that effect should be given. ^"^ 
Although the naval armament on both sides was reduced, as 
indicated above, each nation maintained a limited naval equipment 
— not until fifteen years later did the British seriously discuss the 
expediency and policy of discontinuing this remaining unnecessary 
and even baneful establishment. The United States had already 
set the example which the Britisli admiralty at last wisely followed. 
The Lords of the Admiralty were prompted to do this from motives 
quite as potent as that of removing possible friction with the United 
States. First, there was the expense ; the pay and allowance of 
the officers and men, and of the civil part of the establishment 
employed on the Lakes, amounted to a sum exceeding eight thou- 



"The following is an account of the actual force upon the lakes in the spring of 1817; 
British vessels. Lake Ontario. 
St. Lawrence can carry 110 guns; laid up in ordinary 

Psyche " " 50 " " " •• 

Princess . . . 

Charlotte ..." " 40 " ...... 

Niagara . . . . " " 20 '" unfit for service 

Charwell ..." " 14 " " 
Prince Regent " " 60 " unequipped 
Montreal carries 6 " transport only- 
Star " 4 " unfit for service 

Netley Schooner. " " surveyor's boat 

Some row boats, 274 gun ships on the stocks and one transport of 400 tons. 

Lake Erie. 

Tecumseh and New Castle, 4 guns each. 
Huron and Tank, 1 each, transports chiefly. 

Lake Huron. 

2 schooners, 1 gun each; transports only. 

Lake Champlain. 
12 gun boats, 10 of these laid up in ordinary (C. A. Q. 138, p. 366.) 

American vessels. 
Lake Ontario. 

Brig Jones 18 guns in service 

Schooner, Lady of the Lake 1 " " revenue service. 

Ship New Orleans, Rate 14 " on stocks 

• " Chippewa 74 " 

" Superior 44 " dismantled 

" Mohawk 33 " 

" General Pike 24 " 

" Madison 18 " 

Brig Jeflferson 18 " 

" Sylph 16 " 

" Oneida 18 " 

Schooner Raven " " 

15 barges each one gun, laid up for preservation. 

Lake Erie. 

Schooner Porcupine I gun, transport 

Ghent 1 " " 

Ship Detroit, rate 18 sunk at Erie 

Brig Lawrence 20 " " " 

" Queen Charlotte 14 

' ' Niagara 18 dismantled at Erie 

33 



sand pounds a year, while the quantity of stores kept at Montreal 
and Kingston ever since the war had been "quite enormous" and 
the loss from waste and decay had been "proportionately great." ^'' 
Second, all this expense was unnecessary. True, the people of 
Canada had looked to the fleet as one means of defense against 
the United States ; but protection had been increased by the con- 
struction of the Rideau Canal and the fortifications at Quebec and 
Kingston ; the line of forts recommended by the Duke of Wellington 
had gone far to make Canada impregnable.®^ At any rate it was 
a vain effort to try to maintain a British naval supremacy on the 
Great Lakes. 

The British admiralty, however, were afraid a false impression 
might be created by a sudden withdrawal of the establishment. 
Hence, it was suggested simply to cease to repair the vessels. 
Definite steps were not taken towards decisive reductions till October, 
1834.^" The Admiralty thereby acted in harmony with the general 
policy of the reform government of that day, but incidentally they 
removed an obstacle in the way of friendly intercourse between the 
Canadas and the United States. A few other British statesmen 
meanwhile were trying to lessen expense and increase international 
good will by cancelling or decreasing the gifts to American Indians. 
A greater number of influential British traders and government 
igents, however, for various reasons, advised their government to 
continue the granting of these presents. Such traders and agents 
were a menace to the westward march of the American settlers. 



Lake Chamijlain. 
Ship Confianee, rate 32 Laid up at White Hall 

Saratoga 22 

Brig Eagle 12 

Linnet 16 

Schooner Ticonderoga 14 

6 galleys, each 2 

C. A. Q. 138, p. 370. 

»'Barrow to Hay, Dec. 3, 1833, C. A. Q. 210, p. 17, and see Hall's Travels in Canada 
and U. S. 1817, p. 100 and 101. 

••Ibid. 

"Barrow to Hay, Oct. 7, 1834, C. A. Q. 218, p. 52, and see Niles Reg. for Dec. 31, 1831, 
p. 327. 



34 



IV. 
THE INDIAN MENACE. 

While the question of the decreasing of the naval armaments was 
being discussed in England and in Canada during the year 1816, 
the discontented tribes of the Northwest formed a confederacy, 
collected in great numbers about the frontier Canadian posts, and 
■demonstrated by their numbers and their actions that they bitterly 
resented what they considered American encroachment upon their 
rights and privileges. An Indian Council met at Amherstburg on 
June 19, composed of the Hurons. Ottawas, Chippewas, Potta- 
wotomies, Shawnees, Kickapoos and JMunsies. Lieutenant Colonel 
James and other officers of his garrison were also present. 

The Indians in this council complained that when they had re- 
turned to their old hunting grounds after the ratification of the 
Treaty of Ghent they had been ordered to depart, with the notice that 
if they refused, they would be fired upon. It was claimed, they 
said, that their lands had been sold "from such a latitude to such 
a latitude." They never sold lands except from some named river or 
creek to some other river, lake or mountain ; and lately they had 
sold no land at all to the United States. At Detroit a certain Mr. 
Godfrey, they declared, had ordered them back into Canada, telling 
them that the United States was their country no longer. They 
mourned over losses which they had suffered in order to help the 
British ; they had not received the prize money for helping to take 
Detroit, they had lost all, their horses, cattle, plows, houses. They 
wanted James to lay their complaints before the government at 
Quebec and insisted that the British keep their promises to recom- 
pense them for losses. ^° 

A little earlier in June there met at Drummond Island a tumul- 
tuous assembly, composed chiefly of Sioux. There were some four 
hundred at first, and at least three times that number were said to 
be on the way thither. According to McDouall, commanding officer 
at that post, they were brooding over wrongs, indignant because 
no assistance had been given them, and consequently hazarding 
the safety of the garrison. Presents of a little powder and other 



•"C. A. Q. 206, p. 301; also Kingsford IX., p. 68. 

35 



things, he said, failed to give satisfaction to the Indians but angered 
the Americans; chiefs of the greatest reputation could not divest 
themselves of the suspicion that the erection of forts in the western 
territories meant their complete subjugation if not entire destruc- 
tion; and the little Corbeau considered the exclusion of British 
traders as sealing the ruin of the nations. Little Corbeau referred 
to an act of Congress approved of by President Madison April 29, 
1816, whereby none but American citizens was henceforth permitted 
to trade with Indians resident within the United States. 

McDouall had no doubt that a strong confederacy of all the 
nations on the Mississippi had been formed for the avowed object 
of resisting American occupation of the West. The Indians seemed 
to be unanimous in an almost unprecedented degree. They came to 
the councils, McDouall said, full of the idea of receiving British 
assistance in securing for themselves possession of their land, rights, 
and privileges assured to them by the Treaty of Ghent; Americans 
were blaming the British for fostering a bellicose spirit, whereas 
Americans themselves were using every art to add to the discontents 
of the savages, threatening and cajoling them by turns and almost 
uniformly concluding with the boast that they had driven their 
English father from among them and would shortly drive him 
beyond the great Salt Lake. Two months later McDouall informed 
Sherbrooke that another Indian council had been held. The Indians 
were more excited than ever. McDouall feared that if they were 
abandoned by the British now they would become the bitterest of 
enemies with perilous results to the Canadians — but this was just 
what the Americans desired. In his opinion the late commercial 
treaty renouncing British rights to the Indian trade was a most 
lamentable mistake, because materially and morally the natives 
had been supplied and cared for by these traders.®^ 

Such were the sentiments of the British officer in close contact 
with the Indians and with his American neighbors. Because of his 
position on the frontier, his recent task of defending his post against 
attacks, his habit of looking upon the American as an enemy, his 
contact with the British traders, and possibly his own personal 
interest in the Indian trade, we may expect him to have held biased 
opinions ; but it was such men as he who could appreciate the loss 



•■McDouall to Military Secretary June 1, 1816, C. A. Q. 137, p. 12 ff. 
McDourII to Mil. Sec, .Tune 17, 1816, C. A. Q. 137, p. 12 ff. 
McDouall to Mil. Sec, June 19, 1816, C. A. Q. 137. 
McDouall to Mil. Sec, Aug. 7, 1816, C. A. Q. 137, p. 70 ff. 

36 



of the good will of the tribes and the consequent danger from 
a military and from a commercial standpoint. 

The men above the frontier officer, however, especially the home 
government, remote from the scene where the real action was in 
progress and representing not only Canadian but imperial interests, 
looked upon all this excitement in the West in a far different light. 
While AIcDouall was thus worried, John Quincy Adams was 
corresponding with the British government, endeavoring, as we 
have seen, to preserve peace and good will in the West and calling 
attention to what had been represented to him as irregularities and 
injustice on the part of certain British officials. Whether this 
letter from Washington was the motive or not, the British gov- 
ernment, both at home and in Canada, used redoubled exertions 
to appease American anger. Sherbrooke instructed McDouall to 
repress, by every means in his power, the hostile disposition of the 
Indians towards the United States and informed Bagot, the British 
minister in Washington, of these instructions. Sherbrooke further 
instructed McDouall to intimate clearly to the Indians that no 
presents would be made to any of those residing within the limits 
of the United States and directed Sir John Johnson, Superintendent- 
General of Indian Affairs, strictly to adhere to this regulation on 
all occasions.'^ Bathurst and Gore entirely concurred with Sher- 
brooke in the inexpediency of sending presents to the far distance 
Sacs or other tribes, and Drummond was instructed by them to 
govern his conduct accordingly.*" 

Nevertheless, contrary to the policy thus dictated, a "few swords, 
sashes, and epaulets" were purchased and given as a "mark of the 
estimate of the zeal and bravery of certain Indian chiefs." Sher- 
brooke, true to his policy, refused to approve of this expenditure 
with the result that McDouall and McKay who had been responsible 
for the purchase were allowed to pay the bill out of their own 
purses.'^ Here again was one of several instances wherein sub- 
ordinate officers tended to endanger the preservation of the peace 
while the higher authorities were striving to give no offense to the 
American government. To prevent further trouble McDouall was 
again commanded not to communicate directly with any of the 
United States authorities, but all matters in dispute were to be 



"Sherbrooke to Bathurst, July 15, 1816, C. A. Q. 136, p. 7. Sept. 20, 1816, C. A. <J. 

•"Bathurst to Gore, July 13, 1816, C. A. Q. 58. 

"McDouall to Military Secretary, June 19, 1816, C. A. Q. 138, p. 241. 

37 



communicated through Sherbrooke.''^ He was once more urged to 
discourage the hostile disposition of the Indians and to tell them 
explicitly that the British government would neither countenance 
nor assist in any action against the American people, and that com- 
plaints they wished to bring forward would be promptly attended 
to and peaceful negotiations would be more likely to obtain rea- 
sonable objects than would any act of indiscreet conduct.®^ 

The Westminster government, it is clear, did not at this time 
encourage the Indian in his hostility to the Americans. In fact, 
it may fairly be conceded that all through this period, there was 
an attempt to maintain the good will of the American government 
even though it should tend to the sacrifice of Canadian or Indian 
interests. The commercial regulations had cut oflF the British trade 
within American limits to the injury of the Upper and Lower 
Canadian trader. Liverpool, Prime Minister of England, openly 
declared that he had no intention of assisting his former Indian 
allies even if they were being abused. The Treaty of Ghent, he 
said, stipulated for the restoration of the Indians to all the territories 
and privileges which they enjoyed previous to the war, but he 
assured them it was never intended to offer any guarantee for the 
repossession of them.^"*' Liverpool's own policy therefore was to 
do nothing towards helping the Indians regain any coveted hunting 
grounds. 

While McDouall was much worked up lest war should immediately 
break out, Sherbrooke was convinced that the temper and conduct 
of the chiefs indicated no danger unless they were first attacked. ^"^ 
Bagot, like McDouall on Lake Huron, was less optimistic. He had 
been in communication with Monroe, had informed that Secretary 
what steps Sherbrooke and the British government were taking 
to prevent any disturbance, and had assured him that Great Britain 
would lend no military assistance to the Indians. Monroe tried to 
quiet Bagot's apprehensions by telling him that the United States 
intended to build only one fort, the one at Green Bay, where there 
had always been a fort,^"^ and left the impression that the Indians 
had no grounds to fear American encroachment. Bagot, however, 
did not believe this. Notwithstanding the assurance from Monroe 



•"Hall tn McDouall, .July 4, 1816, C. A. Q. 138, p. 327. 
''■'C. A. Q. 136, p. 222; C. A. Q. 138, p. 328. 
'""Shprbrooke to Bathurst, Aug. 9, 1816, C. A. Q. 137, p. 68. 
""Sherbrooke to Bathnrst, Aug. 9, 1816, C. A. iQ. 137, p. 68. 
luJBagot to Castlereagh, Aug. 21, 1816, C. A. Q. 138, p. 313. 

38 



he apprehended that the alarms of these Indians were in fact well 
founded and that the building of forts was only a part of a larger 
scheme by which it was intended gradually to expel or extirpate 
the Indian from the soil.^°* As a matter of fact, the United States 
had already planned to extend a line of forts far north and west 
into the Indian territory.^"* 

During the years immediately following this stormy year of 1816 
the trouble continued, though it was less violent. Jealous of British 
influence and rightly so, the Americans were endeavoring to exclude 
the British entirely from trading with Indians residing within the 
United States. ^"^ The Indians, still alarmed at the extension of 
American posts into the far west/"* continued to resort to the 
British posts at Drummond Island, and bitterly complained that the 
British were neglecting them by not preventing the advance of the 
Americans. McKay, writing in 1819, still professed to be afraid 
of the most serious consequences to the garrison at Drummond 
Island and to the lives of His Majesty's subjects in that part of 
the country, unless some satisfactory communication were made to 
the Indians.^^'' The Indians to be feared were those warriors who 
had served the British in 1812 and whose lands are now situated 
within the United States. 

Meanwhile, Cass failed to prevent Canadian agents from trading 
and tampering with American Indians, and therefore collected 
affidavits and other material to lay before the administration in 
London. Thus, London found itself at one and the same time 
censured by the American ambassador for stimulating insurrection 
among American Indians and threatened by these same Indians 
because the British were not providing a sufficiently vigorous and 
zealous protection against American usurpation of their rights. 



losBagot to Castlereagh, Aug. 12, 1816, C. A. Q. 138, p. 313. 
""Monroe to Clark, March 11, 1815, A. S. P., I. A. II, p. 6. 
"^Johnson to McXaughten, March 2. 1817, C. A. Q. 323, p. 193. 
'"•Dalhousie to Bathurst, Nov. 12, 1821, C. A. Q. 150, p. 407. 
""^McKay to Bathurst, Feb. 15, 1819, C. A. Q. 153, p. 211. 



39 



V. 

THE CANADIANS RETAIN THE INDIANS' GOOD WILL. 

The British were anxious to retain an influence over the Indians 
of the Northwest largely because of the lucrative fur trade/°^ As 
early as 1754 Green Bay, then garrisoned by only one officer, one 
sergeant and four soldiers, required thirteen canoes to transport its 
annual supply of goods and the total yearly trade at this post was 
worth eighteen thousand dollars. "'^ The Northwest Company, 
founded in 1783, maintained four emporiums in the West — Detroit, 
Mackinac, Sault St. Marie, and Grand Portage. At the beginning 
of the nineteenth century Grand Portage alone sent annually 106,000 
beaver skins to Montreal, to say nothing of other commodities.^^" 
This extensive trade carried with it a market for British goods 
and so the manufacturers in England as well as the French Canadian 
traders were interested in this old Northwest. 

As the Americans pushed their frontier farther North and West, 
they too became increasingly interested in this trade. A keen 
rivalry developed between the French Canadians who were already 
on the ground, and the New York and New England adventurers 
who claimed jurisdiction over the soil and over the natives. Neither 
side was conspicuous for any deep or sentimental afifection for its 
competitor. Robert Dickson, a Canadian trader writing in 1814, 
reveals the fierce spirit of rivalry. He said: "The crisis is not far 
ofT when I trust to God that the tyrant [Napoleon] will be humbled 
and the scoundrel American Democrats will be obliged to go down 
on their knees to Britain. "^^^ As early as 1685 New England 
traders had established posts at IVIichillimackinac whereupon the 
French by force and strategy endeavored to drive them out and 
retain a monopoly of the trade in this region. "' 



""In a report of the Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantation in 1772 the 
attitude of the English government was stated in these terms: "The great object of 
colonization upon the continent of North America has been to improve and to extend 
the commerce and manufacturers of this kingdom * * * It does appear to us 
that the extension of the fur trade depends entirely upon the Indians being undis- 
turbed in the possession of their hunting grounds. * * * Let the savages enjoy 
their deserts in quiet; were they driven from their forests the peltry trade would be 
decreased." J. H. U. S., Vol. 9, 580. 

'"•C. A. Q. 1886, p. CLXII. 

""J. H. IT. S., Vol. IX, p. 581, 595. 

"M. H. U. S., Vol. IX, p. 589. 

"-•J. H. U. S., IX, p. 513, and Sheldon, Early Hist, of Mich., p. 310. 

40 



The Indians meanwhile generally preferred to trade with the 
French or with their successors, the I'.ritish."-'' With the soil the 
British seemed also to obtain the good will of the natives. The 
French in Canada had known how to win the Indians' friendship 
and respect. ^^* Under British regime these same Frenchmen, 
Coureurs des Bois, still mingled with the natives and both French and 
Indians turned their allegiance to and looked for protection from 
their British father. Furthermore the British won influence over 
the Indians by a display of force. In succession the French and the 
Americans had surrendered to the British at Detroit and Michilli- 
mackinac and the credulous Indian had become impressed with 
the might and power of the conquerors. 

The Indians now needed help, or thought they did. This assist- 
ance they sought from the powerful "Redcoats" who instead of 
trespassing upon the hunting grounds' ^^ were even extending in- 
vitations for the Indians to enter Canada and take up their abode 
in those unsettled wilds. On the other hand, immigrants from the 
Atlantic states were both lawfully and unlawfully pressing into 
the Indian lands of Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan."** American- 
Indian superintendents and agents themselves complained of insuf- 
ficient power to prevent this illegal encroachment. "Persons are 
found in the Indian territory," wrote Edwards, "hunting, tres- 
passing, trading without license, or engaged in any other unlawful 
purpose. Many such offenders pass with impunity while these 
unlawful visits and intrusions have the most unhappy effect upon 
the Indians who have repeatedly made them the subjects of their 
bitterest complaints.""® 

Such encroachments made the Indian hate the American. Cal- 
houn's policy of building military posts in the West in advance of 
the settlements only increased the discontent because these outposts 
themselves were considered to be encroachments. Even while the 



"•A. S. p., Indian Affairs, II, 327 ff. 

"*A. S. P., Indian Affairs, II, p. 70. 

'"Tecumseh's speech to Gen. Proctor at Amherstburp, 1813, reveals a belief 
among the Indians that the British had promised to help them recover their lands in 
the Northwest territory. "When the war was declared," said the preat Indian 
captain, "our father stood up and pave us the tomahawk and told us he was now 
ready to strike the American, that he wanted our assistance, and that he would 
certainly get us back our lands which the Americans had taken from us." "Summer 
before last," said Tecumseh in 1810, "when I came forward with my red brethren 
and was ready to take up the hatchet in favor of our Briti.sh father, we were told 
not to be in a hurry, that he had not yet determined to fight the Americani." School- 
craft: H. of I. T., Vol. VI, p. 351; p. 358. Copied from oflicial military and naval 
letters. 

"^Schoolcraft, II. of I. T., VI, p. XIII. 

""Edwards to Crawford, Nov., 1815, A. S. P., I. A. II. p. 63. 

41 



Indians ceded lands in councils, there was always an undertone of 
unwillingness to cede. "The Americans are never satisfied," they 
declared at one of these councils/-" Cass and McArthur perceived 
how displeased the Indians were to give up their lands when, in 
1818, it was proposed that the Wyandottes, Shawnees, and Senecas 
should remove west of the Mississippi. The tribes received this 
proposition with such strong symptoms of disapprobation that it 
was deemed expedient to postpone the migration. "The time had 
not yet arrived," Cass wrote, "for them voluntarily to abandon the 
land of their fathers .... As our settlements surround them, 
their minds will be better prepared to receive this proposition." ^^^ 
Furthermore, the British-Indian department was undoubtedly su- 
perior to that of the Americans. The latter themselves, acknowl- 
edged this.^-- J\Iore care and tact was exercised in the manage- 
ment of Indian affairs ; British agents were acquainted with at least 
one of the native languages and so were not easily imposed upon ; 
a blacksmith was found at every post to make repairs for the 
Indians ;^-^ and when military prowess, or invitations to visit and 
live in Canada, or ordinary management could no longer prevail 
upon the Indian, a more lavish outpouring of presents was made 
to compensate. The liberality of British beneficence formed a 
marked contrast to the paucity of American gifts. The "United 
States' presents are so small they might as well be discontinued," 
wrote one American agent.^-* 

The Americans, however, were quite as anxious to win the favor 
of the tribes and were using the same tactics as the British.^-' 
Harrison's speech in the council at Detroit in 1815 was a direct 
appeal to the known instincts of the Indians. Thousands of dollars' 
worth of medals and presents were ordered to be distributed at St. 
Louis and other places.^-** When any treaty was signed, or when 
lands were purchased, the Indians were bribed to accede to the 
wishes of the land-grabbers but there is no instance recorded as 
far as I have found, nor any complaint made, that the Americans 
offered presents to nonresident Indians, the crime that was re- 
peatedly and justly charged against the dispensers of gifts at Maiden 



'"Schoolcraft, Vol. VI, p. 383. And see speech by Creek chief in Niles Register 
for June 20, 1829. 

">Cass to Calhoun, Sept. 18. 1818, A. S. P., I. A. II, p. 177. 
'=f-A. S. P., I. A., II, p. 85. 

'23Forsythe to Clark, A. S. P., I. A., II, p. 79. 
i=«A. S. P., I. A. II, p. 86. 
'2^C. A. iQ. 333, p. 292. 
i="A. S. P., I. A. II, p. 6. 

42 



or Manitoulin. The Americans found too many Indians already. 
They wanted to expel those they had rather than attract more. 

Despite numerous foreign influences and extraneous impediments 
the citizens of the United States can blame only themselves for a 
considerable part of their failure to win the affections of these 
western tribes and gather to themselves the profits from the fur 
trade. Systematic effort to regulate the Indian trade began in 
1786 when the whole territory occupied by the natives was divided 
into two districts with a superintendent and deputy over each. Only 
licensed individuals were allowed to trade and foreigners were 
not permitted to obtain a license till 1790. In 1816 foreigners 
were again prohibited unless by special permission of the President 
and he issued instructions to admit foreigners only as boatmen or 
interpreters. 

Meanwhile the factory system had been introduced, but until 
after the war it had not superseded the earlier mode of carrying 
on the trade by license. In 1796 the President was authorized to 
establish trading houses and to appoint an agent at each house 
to carry on, as the act states, "a liberal trade with the Indians." 
The original capital of $150,000 and an annual allowance of $8,000 
to pay clerks and agents had been increased until in 181 1 it stood 
at $300,000 and an annual allowance of $19,250.^-''^ By authority 
of this act of 1796, renewed and revised from time to time, eight 
or ten factories under government supervision and regulation were 
established within Indian territory. Such goods as the Indians 
might require were here kept and exchanged for furs, or whatever 
surplus produce the natives might have. These storehouses were 
intended to serve as a check upon the unfairness or rapacity of 
the licensed trader and ensure to the Indians a sufficient amount of 
necessary goods at a fair price. 

Just before the war, in 181 1. there were in operation ten such 
factories to supply the needs of the Indians within the limits of 
the whole country.^-' During the war four of these in the north- 
western districts, namely those at Michillimackinac. Chicago. San- 
dusky and Fort Wayne, had been broken up by the enemy ; but 
when peace was again assured and the United States garrisons 
had begun to occupy Green Bay and Prairie du Chien, factories 
were again established to take the place of those destroyed. In 



'2««A. S. P., I. A. II, p. laiff. Report of J. C. Calhoun. 
'^'Mason's Report, A. S. P., I. A. II, p. 68. 

43 



the fall of 1815 two were set up at Chicago and Green Bay."* 
Two more were soon in operation at Prairie du Chien and at a 
place nine miles above Natchitoches."" Once this machinery for 
the supply of the Indian needs was again in operation, the govern- 
ment of the United States made an attempt to throw the Indian 
trade wholly into the hands of these factories. By an act of 1816 
the British trader was excluded from holding any intercourse with 
the Indians residing within the jurisdiction of the United States. 
This act was of course antagonistic to the interests of the North- 
west Company, who immediately complained that the natives were 
being deprived of their rights and privileges guaranteed by the 
Treaty of Ghent."° 

But complaints came not only from the British or even from the 
Indians ; the factories met with harsh criticism from many of the 
Americans themselves. As early as October, 181 5, Governor Clark 
from St. Louis declared that the "mode of managing Indian affairs 

grew more and more imperfect every day" and the 

"decided policy of England, so recently and clearly developed of 
using the Indian tribes to vex and harass the frontier settlements 
in time of peace and as active partisans in time of war, ought to 
admonish the United States to adopt a 7nore efficient system of 
regulating the Indian concerns" than had hitherto been in use. By 
the existing methods, he said, the tribes were not at that time 
furnished with what they absolutely required."^ Similar charges 
were reported later. 

The trouble with the factory system was not that the United 
States government was trying to make money out of the business. 
During these years the system was carried on at an annual loss of 
over $5,000."^ Undeniably the policy of the federal authorities was 
to maintain peace and to acquire an influence over the tribes which 
could be obtained only by generous treatment. Prominent Amer- 
icans on the floors of Congress advocated a humane and benev- 
olent policy. The earnest desire of the government was "to draw 
its savage natives within the pale of civilization." American offi- 
cers on the ground held the same views. The Governor of Mich- 
igan Territory at this time favored cash payments of annuities, 



>«Mason to Crawford, Feb. 9, 1816, A. S. P., I. A. II, p. 68. 

'"A. S. P., I. A. II, p. 127. 

i»*J. H. U. S., IX, p. 597. Also McGillivray to Harvey, 1815, C. A. Q. 132, p. 35. 

"'Clark to Crawford, Oct. 1, 1815, A. S. P., I. A. II, p. 77. 

"'Crawford'* Report, March 13, 1816, Feb. 4, 1817, A. S. P., I. A. II, p. 127. 

44 



because it would be "more satisfactory to the Indians."''' Never- 
theless the Indians were not satisfied with the system introduced 
into the Northwest. 

Even while the act of 1816, providing for the exclusion of for- 
eign traders was under discussion, Mason pointed out the peculiar 
difficulties which the legislators were partly creating, partly over- 
coming.^2* j^g recognized that it would be very questionable 
whether the amount of supplies heretofore furnished in many parts 
of the territories by the British traders could, within a short period, 
be supplied by the American factors. He saw that the "Indian 
trade required certain associations of local information and habit 
on the one hand, and of capital and perseverance on the other, 
which could not be at once matured." If British traders were 
excluded, not only would the Indians sufTer for the want of nec- 
essary supplies but they would lose respect for the American gov- 
ernment. '^^^ It is perfectly apparent therefore that the American 
government had not been left entirely ignorant of the probable 
effects of this act of 1816. 

As a matter of fact, however, many British traders managed to 
evade this American law.^^"' Statements of such men as Benjamin 
O'Fallon, Indian agent on the Missouri, and Matthew Irwin, United 
States Factor at Green Bay, leave no doubt as to the great number 
of British subjects who continued to trade with the American 
tribes. Writing from Prairie du Chien in 1817, O'Fallon told of 
his extreme "surprise and disappointment in meeting with nu- 
merous British traders equipped with licenses under the authority 
of the United States government."^^" Irwin at the same time com- 
plained of the number of British subjects licensed by the American 
Fur Company to trade on the Wisconsin, Upper Mississippi, the 
Chicago district, and other places. ''" He also pointed out the 
palpable incongruity of allowing such licenses ; the factors were 
sent to supply the needs of the Indians and yet the Indian agents 
could adopt measures so as to defeat the plans of the factors.'" 
The American Fur Company, backed up, it would seem, by the 
Secretary of War himself, in 1817 freely granted licenses to men 



"•Letter of Cass, Oct. 21, 1815. A. S. P., I. A. II, p. 75. 

"♦Mason to Crawford, March 1, 1815, A. S. P., I. A. II, p. 70. 

"♦"Ibid. 

>»J. H. U. S., IX, p. 597. 

"•A. S. P., I. A. II, p. 358-359. 

i"J. H. U. S., IX, p. 597. 

'««A. S. P., I. A. II, p. 259, 360. 

45 



who understood how to serve the Company ; whether these were 
citizens of the country or aHens, the Fur Company doubtless cared 
little.^^'' UnHcensed British traders were also numerous, "In fact," 
Irwin wrote later, "from the prejudices they, [the British traders,] 
have excited against American traders, the American trade is con- 
fined to the British traders The Indians are altogether 

led away by them."^^"*' The factor at Green Bay also stated that 
the British had almost completely monopolized the trade in that 
vicinity.^^" Many other Indian agents confirmed the statement 
of O'Fallon : "the Indians cannot be attached to the factories ; they 
have almost abandoned them."^*^ "Nine-tenths of the Indian 
trade," said Crooks, "is not done with the factories, but with private 

traders So small a trade is done at the factories that 

their withdrawal would not be felt."^*- The factory system there- 
fore proved to be a failure. 

Various reasons were assigned for the failure of the factor to 
gain the favor of the native hunters and trappers. In the first 
place, he rarely met the Indians except during the process of barter. 
He did not cultivate intimacy wnth them and his knowledge of them 
was proportioned to an intercourse so limited and unsociable. ^*^ 
The private trader to the contrary became identified with the tribe 
which he commonly visited. 

A second fault found with the factor was that he too often sup- 
plied goods not suited to the Indian.^"** The quality of the goods 
of the factory at Green Bay was reported to be bad, the blankets 
and woolen goods particularly so.^*'' Both Ramsey Crooks, who 
was acquainted with the factory system as it was conducted at 
dififerent periods at Bell Fontaine, Fort Madison, Chicago, Michill- 
imackinac. Fort Osage, Prairie du Chien, Fort Edwards, and Green 
Bay, and who ought to have been an authority on the question,"" 
and Governor Edwards, who was quite as closely connected with 
the system, regretted that the factories' goods were inferior and 



""Ibid. 

""Letter of Augrust 10, 1818, A. S. P., I. A. II, p. 359. 

"'A. S. P., I. A. II, p. 228-229. 

"^Crooks and Biddle fo the Senate, Jan., 1822, A. S. P., I. lA. II, 330, 327. 

"^Crooks and Biddle to the Senate, Jan., 1822, A. S. P., I. A. II, 330, 327. 

""Ibid. 

'"Biddle to the Senate, A. S. P., I. A. II, p. 326. 

""Crooks to Senate, A. S. P., I. A. II, p. 329, Jan. 23, 1822. "The quality of 
the Indian goods," he said, "has always been much inferior to the same description of 
articles furnished by privat*_ traders, except, perhaps, during the late war. Gun 
powder, balls, shot, and the like, are as good at the factories; but the blankets and 
other drygoods generally have been from twenty-five to fifty per cent inferior to the 
corresponding articles supplied, by individual traders." 

46 



admonished the government that its first care should be to obtain 
goods, particularly the important articles of blankets and cloths, of 
equal quality to those that were carried into the Indian market by 
their rivals. This, it was said, "had never heretofore been done in 
a single instance." "^ Xo doubt it is true, too. that the more wily 
private traders taught the Indians to prefer British goods. They 
told them that all blankets, cloths, ribbons, shawls, jewelry, etc., of 
common quality were of American manufacture and that the British 
made only the best ; that only American goods were for sale at the 
factory and that even if the price were lower, the goods were 
dearer, and very dear considering the quality.'""* This argument 
hurt the factories and operated not a little in favor of the British.'** 
That in general, the Indians considered British goods superior to 
American must be accepted. But we must not suppose that the 
factories carried poor goods only. Cass, for instance, just before 
the factory system was abolished, spoke of some of them as 
being "very satisfactory" and "very well selected." '''" 

Another objection to the factories was that in some places, 
especially at Green l>ay, there was no uniformity whatever in 
prices.'^' In this matter of price and the quality of the goods it 
was not easy to deceive the Indians. They were not uncritical and 
not incompetent judges. They recognized that prices varied at 
both the factory and among private traders and therefore bought 
from those who treated them best.'^^ 

The crowning fault with the factors, however, was that they did 
not employ the credit system.''*^ Credits were actually indispensable 
because the hunting grounds were more distant than formerly. In- 
dians were obliged to go more than three hundred miles from their 
villages in order to find their game. They did not have furs previous 



"^Edwards to Crnwford, Nov., 1815, A. S. P., I. A. IT, p. 65. The foll-vwing 
incident emphasizes Edwards' views: "A gentleman of our party," said CaptBin 
John B. Bell, in 1822, "had with him what is termed by the Indians a Mackinac 
blanket, which is of a superior quality of blankets and such as are generally furnished 
by the British traders at JIackinac to the Indians. Several of the Indian party 
noticed this blanket and each proposed to exchange his blanket, which was of the 
same description as tho.se supplied by the United States or their traders, offering 
at the same time something very considerable in addition. * * * Qn inquiry, I 
found that the Indians were under the impression that the blankets, arms, vermillion, 
etc., furnished them at Mackinac, were of a superior quality to anything received 
from the American government or procured from its traders." Bell, of Senate C!om- 
mittee, to Benton, Jan. 23, 1822, A. S. P., I. A. II, p. 329. 

"'Sibley, Feb. 3, 1818, A. S. P., I. A. II, p. 363. 

"•Ibid. 

"»A. S. P., I. A. II, p. 426. 

i»'Biddle, OTallon, and Bell, 1822, A. S. P., I. A. II, p. 326-7. 

"'Crooks and Biddle, A. S. P., I. A. II, p. 331, 327. 

""Edwards, A. S. P., I. A. II, p. 66. 

47 



to the hunt to pay for their goods, and could not return on account 
of the distance, cold, and dangers to get supplies. These supplies 
therefore had to be advanced to them or carried to their hunting 
grounds. The custom of advancing goods on credit dated back 
to the French regime and was also used by the Dutch and New 
Englanders.^^* The amount of credit granted varied with the 
reputation of the individual hunter, from $40 or $50 worth to 
$300.^" 

Good goods and courteous treatment drew the Indians to the 
British rather than to the factories. British traders did their best 
to extend their credit to any hunter who had a fair reputation 
because a family who had obtained goods on credit sold all of its 
furs to those who advanced the goods. ^^^ Out on the hunting 
grounds, one hundred or two hundred miles from the summer 
camp, British traders built their cabins alongside those of the 
hunters, collected furs in payment for advances already given and 
granted additional credit to those who were prospering in the 
chase. Even a lower price at the factory before the hunt offered no 
inducement for an Indian to buy there. Improvident by nature, he 
had no capital on hand. Well might he think that the attempt 
of 1816 to shut out those who extended credit was an attempt to 
injure the red man and not the Montreal merchant. ^^'^ 

The first approach of the American factory had been a disappoint- 
ment to the tribes. British frontier posts had been depots for free 
gifts to the Indians. When the United States warehouses were 
carried to the districts approaching Canada the Indians were so 
firmly of the opinion that the goods deposited there were to be 
disposed of after the manner of the British that they frequently 
charged the factors with selling for their own emolument what 
their great father, the President, had intended as presents. When 
they found that they were mistaken the "impression became univer- 
sal" that their American father must be very poor indeed since he 
sent his goods into their country to be sold for skins as a common 



»«J. H. U. S. IX, p. 602. 

"'^Schoolcraft in 1831 estimated $48.34 in goods and provisions at cost price was 
the annual supply of each hunter. This is confirmed by Turner in J. H. U. S. IX, 
p. fi03 (see A. S. P., I. A. II, p. 64;56). An account from the book of Jacques Polier 
at Green Bay, in 1823, shows that the Indian Michel bought on credit in the fall, 
cloth, $16; trap, $1.00; cotton, $3.12J; powder, $1.50; lead, $1.00; bottle of 
whisky, fifty cents; and other miscellany; making a total of about $25. This was 
paid for in the spring by muskrat skins, a foxskin, and maple sugar, to the full 
extent, but the trader usually expected to get at least one hundred per cent profit 
upon the credit transactions (see J. H. U. S. IX, p. C03). 
'5«Kdwards, A. S. P., I. A. II. 64, 66. 

""Edwards, Nov., 1815, and Forsyth, A. S. P., I. A. II, pp. 64, 79. 

48 



trader had bought his goods. While England's king by unanimous 
consent received the appellation of father, the President of the 
United States was degraded to the level of a common adventurer.'"'' 

The American trading houses themselves not infrequently played 
into the hands of the British. The British traders bought goods 
from the factory at Chicago through an Indian friendly to them, 
it might be, and then the British traded these goods with the 
Indians for furs. Thus an enterprising Canadian trader whose 
stock of English goods had become exhausted might, nevertheless, 
collect a big load of furs to sell in the Eastern or European 
markets. ^''^ 

Against such odds the trading post system, backed up though it 
was by such friendly supporters as Jefferson and Calhoun, could 
not but fail. Calhoun tried to improve the system by organizing a 
still bigger trading post business with a complete government 
monopoly managed by a private company. ^®° Benton and the Amer- 
ican Fur Company, however, were bitterly opposed to this plan. 
They declared the system bad, both as a civilizing and as a Chris- 
tianizing influence. ^"^ In the first session of the seventeenth Con- 
gress, 1822, it was at last abolished. The trade was then left 
entirely to private enterprise, but until the Indian moved far beyond 
the Mississippi the British trader maintained his hold on the old 
Northwest territories as hitherto, and furs continued to pass down 
the St. Lawrence. 



>»sCrook8 to Senate, Jan. 23, 1822, A. S. P., I. A. II, p. 331. 

'"Ibid. 

'^A. S. P., I. A. II, p. 181, 184. 

">A. S. P., I. A. II, p. 331, 417. 



49 



VI 
INDIAN PRESENTS. 

Long before 1815 the Indians were accustomed to receive pres- 
ents from those who had any traffic with them. Traders had 
purely commercial and selfish ends to serve. It was otherwise with 
the civil and military powers, who in the second, third, and fourth 
decades of the nineteenth century continued to bestow gifts not 
only upon the resident Indians, but upon those who lived beyond 
their borders. They defended their action on the ground of grati- 
tude, of usage, of pledge, of policy, and of necessity.^"* It can 
scarcely be doubted, however, that the chief motive for continuing 
to give presents was that the British wanted to retain a dominating 
influence. 

Almost as soon as the Treaty of Ghent had been signed, Bathurst 
wrote to Drummond: "You will not fail to make liberal presents 
to the Indian tribes who have cooperated with us."^^^ There was 
not necessarily anything insidious in this. The Indians then were 
with or near the British army. It was not a matter of bribing 
Indians who lived in the United States ; it was merely a partial 
payment of an honest debt, and as such could not be oflFensive 
to the United States. It was not these first gifts but the later ones 
that caused trouble. When Provost made an announcement of the 
Treaty to the Indians, he definitely promised that the presents sent 
to the frontier posts should not be diminished. His military officers 
at Alalden, Michillimackinac, Drummond, or Manitoulin Islands 
were chiefly responsible for the extension of this kind of favor 
and on many occasions it will be observed that it was these military 
officers in Canada rather than the civil officers and rather than the 
distant British government who realized the need of maintaining 
the Indian as an ally. Every action on the part of the Colonial 
Office was an effort to prevent renewal of war. Compromises in 
the boundary dispute, disavowal of the deeds of frontier officers, 
orders to cease sending presents, all bear out the statement. But 



i«*Caldwell to Glaus, Dec. 20, 1815, C. A. Q. 320, p. 155. 

When the Indians' allowance had been curtailed in the preceding years, the 
Indians had committed depredations as the Prophet had predicted. 

iwfialhurst to Drummond, Jan. 10, 1815, C. A. Q. 320, p. 57. 

50 



certain minor officers often brought the two nations to the verge 
of serious conflict. 

Not content with supplying presents to the Indians who came 
to his frontier posts, Drummond in the fall or winter of 1815 and 
1816, even suggested the advisability of sending some to the Indians 
residing on the Mississippi. He did not wish, he said, to foment 
discord between Canada and the United States, for his desire was 
quite the opposite ; but faithful services should be remembered and 
promises should be kept.'"" It is difficult to perceive how Drum- 
mond could convince himself that the sending of goods across 
American territory to Indians residing within American limits would 
not excite American hostility. Did Drummond really imagine that 
the Indians might cause trouble — as Caldwell reported them to 
have done before — if presents were not forthcoming and that this 
was a means of preserving peace within American jurisdiction? 

Happily, Drummond's proposal was not acted upon. Gore re- 
ferred the matter to Bathurst but informed Bathurst that according 
to information from the Indian Department it was not customary 
to send presents to these Indians even in time of peace, and now, 
while the United States were so extremely jealous of intercourse 
with those residing in their territory, there would be great risk of 
the presents being seized in transit. *^^ There is no doubt that 
Drummond as well as Gore did not want to excite another American 
conflict, but Drummond saw the necessity of alliance with those 
who had helped, and might again be called upon to help, his forces. 
Gore recognized more acutely the delicacy that was necessary in 
dealing with non-resident tribes. 

In May, 1816, the management of Indian affairs, which had been 
a department of the civil administration in Canada, was transferred 
to the military department, and Drummond. therefore, was left more 
free to carry out his plans. '"^ Bathurst, however, favored Gore's 
prudent policy rather than Drummond's proposal, and accordingly 
ordered no presents to leave Canada.'®® Sir J. C. Sherbrooke. who 
landed at Quebec July 11, 1816, as Governor of Canada, instructed 
both McDouall and the superintendent of Indian Affairs to pacify 
the Indians and clearly to announce to them that no presents should 
be made to any residing beyond the British jurisdiction.'^" There 



""Drummond to Gore, March 2, 1816, C. A. Q. 320, p. 79. 
""Gore to Bathurst, March 20, 1815, C. A. |Q. 320, p. 73. 
'«»0. A. Q. 320, p. 337. 
"»C. A. Q. 320, p. 58. 
""C. A. Q. 320, p. 136-7. 

51 



can scarcely be the shadow of a doubt that the protest of Adams 
in the spring of this year was partly responsible for these instruc- 
tions. The Colonial Office was aware of the dangers it was running 
in further irritating the settlers of the Northwest. 

In spite of these spasmodic efforts of Bathurst and others in 1816, 
the giving of presents to the visiting Indians was not suspended. 
Cass, who bore the burden of maintaining order and furthering the 
prosperity of Michigan, felt the evils of this practice more imme- 
diately than any other American officer. By 1818 he had grown 
weary of the persistent efforts of certain foreign agents to influence 
the Indians against his own countrymen. . He, therefore, busied 
himself collecting affidavits and other material so that Calhoun 
might file in the British Foreign Office a carefully detailed and 
formal protest. In August, 1819, he told Calhoun that a radical 
change was necessary in the policy of the United States upon the 
subject of the relations existing between the agents of the British 
government and the Indians residing within the United States. 
He had numerous and grievous charges to make against these 
agents, but it was very difficult he said, to produce definite proofs 
because all written communication was excluded and the language 
was figurative. Large quantities of clothing, arms, amunition and 
trinkets, were annually distributed to American Indians who were 
invited to Fort Maiden. On their way to Maiden these Indians 
stole from and abused American citizens, thus keeping the frontier 
in a continuous state of alarm. It was impossible to punish the In- 
dians. They escaped rapidly. Lately, he said there had appeared 
among them a morbid sensibility and restlessness, without any as- 
signed cause, all of which he blamed to the British agents. He feared 
there was an intention of reviving the plans and policy of Tecumseh 
and of forming a general confederacy. Just then there was at 
Maiden a large party of Sacs and Foxes, bitter enemies of the 
United States, and the greater proportion of the Indians on the 
eastern side of the Mississippi made annual visits there. To prevent 
this, he urged the United States government to put an effective 
stop to the giving of presents. The British had no reason to give 
them, he maintained, for they had bought no land and owed no 
annuities ; it was not a debt nor the price of services justly rendered, 
and to assign any philanthropic motive was perfectly farcical. The 
obvious motive was to acquire and preserve an influence which 
might be exerted if future circumstances should render it expedient. 

52 



That a foreign power should thus subsidize a people living on the 
soil of the United States was to Cass most incompatible with the 
honor of his country and therefore only two courses were open 
to allay the feverish excitement among the Indians and teach them 
not to look to the British for counsel and protection. The first 
was a firm remonstrance to the British government ; the second, 
to prohibit any Indian crossing the river into Canada or from pass- 
ing to the island of Michillimackinac.^'- 

Two months later Cass again wrote that he was convinced that 
at least three thousand Indians had visited Maiden in 1819 and that 
the quantity of goods exceeded anything hitherto received for the 
same term either in peace or in war. The recipients of these goods 
he said, were most influential of the tribes and had come from the 
far Mississippi. As far as he was concerned he would prohibit 
the Indians from crossing into Canada and would send out in- 
structions to his troops and to the interpreters to make this order 
known to the Indians. Under the present conditions he declared, 
it was vain to elevate the Indian socially or morally and it was 
equally ineffectual to exclude British traders while the Indians 
could supply their wants gratuitously from foreign storehouses.^'* 

Whitney reported that one old chief, bearing a reputation for 
veracity, had divulged the secret of a conspiracy that was being 
hatched. The fiery, unbridled imagination of the chief ; the alarm 
and anxiety aroused in the minds of Godfrey and .of Whitney, 
sufferers from the Indians, and consequently from those whom 
they believed to be intrigumg with the Indians ; the fourfold repeti- 
tion of the story ; these are factors that must be considered. The 
story might easily have been an exaggeration and its origin is 
certainly doubtful, but let the story originate where it may, the 
repetition of this particular "conspiracy" by Cass shows the spirit 
with which some of the people of Michigan regarded their neigh- 
bors across the Detroit River and how eagerly they would support 
Cass in his attempt to exclude foreign influence. 

The conspiracy said to have been told by the chief to Godfrey 
and by him to Whitney was this: The King of England, in con- 
junction with the Spaniards, the Negroes, and the Indians of the 



'"Cass to Calhoun, Aug. 3, 1819, C. A. Q. 156, p. 33. 

^"Whitney to Cass, 0. A. Q. 156, p. 313. Whitney corroborated the statements 
made by Cass' both as to the apparent abundance of the presents in the last year and 
to the "effect these were producing upon those who came to get them. The savages 
were being drawn closer and closer to the British, they being much more liberal than 
the Americans in the distribution of ammuoition, etc. 

53 



South, was to join with the Indians from the Northwest and take 
from the Americans the lands from which the Indians had been 
expelled. For the present the dispossessed natives were cautioned 
to return home to their villages without causing- any disturbance 
and wait in readiness until another talk should be sent to them. 
Hostilities would probably be begun in the fall or early the next 
spring. These things were to be confidential among the chiefs 
and old men. Their young men, therefore, had not been informed 
of them. Godfrey was convinced by the statements and reputa- 
tion of the chief that the talk had actually been made to these old 
chiefs and that the simple Indians believed it. At any rate the 
Indians were unusually insolent this summer. Doors had to be kept 
locked ; otherwise they would enter a house, and once in, it was 
impossible to get them out without using violence, a means which 
was dangerous."* 

By such documents as these Cass endeavored to prove that the 
British agents were annually distributing presents with a lavish 
hand ; that the purpose was to acquire an illegitimate influence ; 
that the immediate effects were depredations all along the routes 
leading to the British distributing points ; that the increasing num- 
ber of recipients were becoming more discontented and excited, 
and were likely to join in a confederacy and rebellion ; that the 
critical condition of the Indians and the danger to the citizens 
of Michigan called for immediate and decisive action."'^ 

This report from Cass reached Downing Street in the spring of 
1820 and Balhurst, taking up the matter, requested the Canadian 
officials to make investigations."" At the same time he commanded 
these officials to reduce the distribution of presents and to take 
every precaution not to give offense to Cass or his people. The 
commander of the Canadian forces, Dalhousie, in January, 182 1, 
replied that he had investigated the charges made by the United 
States minister. The acting Superintendent of the Indian Depart- 
ment at the point in question had been interviewed and was perfectly 
satisfied that the complaints of Cass were utterly unfounded and 
the circumstances greatly exaggerated. The policy of maintaining 
a friendly intercourse with the Indians was, in the opinion of 
Dalhousie, too long established, the harmless commercial inter- 
change of furs for trifling articles of British manufacture of too 



"*Cass's Report, Octoher 9, 1819, C. A. Q. 156, p. 33 ff. 
"■'Cass's Report October 9, 1819, C. A. Q. 156, p. 33 ff. 
""Planta to Goulburn, March 3, 1820, C. A. Q. 156, p. 31. 



54 



old a standing and the affection of these wandering tribes towards 
their great father too deeply engraven in the hearts and on the 
records of those people to admit of any marked change of conduct 
towards them. Nevertheless, he would guide himself strictly in 
the line Bathurst had pointed out ; maintain a quiet and friendly 
relation as far as possible with all parties ; reduce the distribution 
of Indian presents as far as consistent with the friendly civilities 
hitherto shown ; and avoid giving any encouragement beyond what 
that civility had by length of time made necessary. ^^^ 

The protest of Cass had once more an effect but only a half 
hearted one. Again we see the I)ritish foreign office anxious to 
preserve peace, and the Canadian military officers anxious to retain 
their old-time ally. The Indian presents were to continue. The 
Indian tribes would therefore tramp across American territory 
and commit crimes along the way. Surely the Canadians could 
not have been blind to the fact that the American settlers suffered 
by the Canadian presents and if they were not blind they were 
morally bound to take measures to prevent the mischief. 

A few months later Dalhousie once more assured Bathurst that 
the presents were "distributed with due propriety" and the Indians 
were "satisfied." He didn't forget, however, to inform Bathurst 
on the same occasion that the Americans were continually extend- 
ing forts farther west. Alarm was intensified by this and by the 
report that of the whole military force of the United States, by 
far the greater part was concentrated on this northwest frontier. 
It was reported, too, that the Americans were increasingly anxious 
to secure the good will of the native tribes.^''^ Dalhousie therefore 
urged the propriety of placing a post at the Falls of St. Mary, 
the key to Lake Superior, and of strengthening other posts — another 
evidence of the care taken by the Canadian armed forces to keep 
up the defenses of the frontier, to display power in the presence 
of the Indians, and, despite the precautionary measures of distant 
cabinet officers, to keep these Indians on their side. 

The London government, however, continued to interfere in this 
western problem. The expensiveness of the Indian department, 
the slow progress in the civilization of the Indian, and the con- 
tinued irritation of the Americans along the frontier called for 
further inquiry in regard to the possibility and practicability of re- 



'"Dalhousie to Bathurst, Jan. 17, 1821, C. A. Q. 157, p. 36. 
"'Dalhousie to Bathurst, C. A. jQ. 157, p. 407. 



iJi) 



form. Horton, Under-Secretary of State for the colonies, was 
anxious to receive a correct account of the number and condition 
of the Indians, of the annual amount of the presents, for what 
proportion of this annual distribution the government was bound 
by contract, whether reductions could not be made without a breach 
of faith and whether the Indian funds could not be expended in a 
manner better calculated to foster a higher civilization.^"' 

Gore's successor, Lieutenant-Governor Maitland, answered his 
questions, declaring it not only to be inconsistent with fairness 
and honesty, but poor policy to reduce this amount.'®" Small 
reductions had in some instances already been made within the 
provinces but invariably these had produced pernicious effects. 
Maitland, like Dalhousie, seemed to forget that while the Indian 
was favored by British magnanimity, the settler in Michigan was 
injured. The governor's disapproval in this case did not prevent 
a continuance of the agitation for reform. Suggestions were made 
that the presents should be confined to useful things only and 
such objects as would encourage the unsettled wanderers to estab- 
lish homes and till the land.^®^ 

In September, 1828, Sir James Kempt assumed the government 
of Canada and immediately set to work to solve the problem. He 
held a consultation with his most experienced officers and stated 
his policy. He would proceed slowly at first but intended to intro- 
duce radical changes later. He deemed it expedient to divide the 
Indian department between the two provinces, still keeping both 
under military control. ^^^ He would make the Indians more pros- 
perous and cultivated, keep them on friendly terms with the United 
States but nevertheless attach them more firmly to his Britannic 
Majesty. His scheme was to commute the annual presents for 
something more substantial by taking advantage of what he thought 
to be a growing inclination on the part of the tribes at this time 
to settle down. He would collect them in considerable numbers 
and establish villages on Canadian soil ; afford them assistance in 
building houses, procuring seeds, implements, etc., and commute 
where practicable all presents for these things. He would provide 
active, zealous, Wesleyan missionaries from England to counteract 
the objectionable principles which the Methodist missionaries from 



"»Horton to Maitland, C. A. Q. 333, p. 290. 

'^Maitland to Hfirton, November 20, 1823, C. A. Q., 333, p. 292. 

'"Hill to Horton, C. A. Q., 167, p. 181. 

"'Kempt to Murray, Feb. 22, 1829, 0. A. Q. 187, p. 431. 

56 



the United States were supposed to instill into the minds of their 
Indian converts. ^*^ Colborne was very much in favor of Kempt's 
ideas. * 

This was not the first time since 1815 that the plan of settlement 
and a commutation of presents had been suggested as a means 
for attracting the allegiance and the presence of the Indians from 
the United States to Canada. Even within a year after the peace, 
Norton had made a similar proposition.'*** This scheme of Kempt's 
— and of Head, who also supported it — was, however, doomed to 
failure from the very nature of the Indians. These people had 
no inclination to engage in agriculture and those who did come to 
Manitoulin at the suggestion of Head found the soil too poor. 
Many of the tribes who lived in the United States and there re- 
ceived annuities knew that if they moved to Canadian territory 
they would have to relinquish the presents, and therefore stayed 
on the other side.^^*^ 

At the very time Head was planning to bring the Indian tribes 
over to Canadian soil, the American government was formulating 
and carrying into effect its scheme of settling these tribes as rapidly 
as possible west of the Mississippi. This in itself might ultimately 
have closed the question of Canadian presents ; for the increased 
distance and the extra exertion required in traveling would have 
prevented the Indian from coming so far to receive so paltry an 
amount of blankets or powder. But not all the northwestern tribes 
would be induced to leave their old-time hunting grounds, and still 
the question of presents continued. During Kempt's administra- 
tion Drummond Island was evacuated and the presents which had 
been distributed from that point were henceforth issued from 
Penetanguishene. Other points, such as St. Joseph's Island and 
Manitoulin, in turn laid claim to be the most satisfactory point, 
that is of being "most convenient for the Indians," which in itself 
shows how anxious the agents were to cater to the taste and good 
will of the Indian.^*' 

In regard to the number of those whose representatives received 
presents from Maiden or the northern post, it is difficult to give an 
accurate estimate. Schoolcraft, from his intimate connection with 
the Indians, is undoubtedly as reliable an authority as any. At the 



'"Kempt to Murray, June 10. 1829, O. A. Q. p. 98, p. 110. 
'"Norton to Colborne. Dec. 1, 1815, 0. A. Q. 135, p. 376, 381. 
'"Schoolcraft, VI, p. 463. 
'"Kempt to Murray, C. A. Q. 189, p. 98. 

57 



outbreak of the war in 1812 he believed that there were in the 
Northwest approximately 41,000 distributed as follows :^^^ 

Warriors. Total. 

Wyandottes of Ohio and Michigan 600 2,500 

Shawnees of Ohio, Michigan and Indiana 120 600 

Senecas of Sandusky 100 500 

Delawares of Indiana 150 750 

Ottawas of Maunee 80 400 

Ottawas of Michigan 400 2,000 

Saginaws 240 i ,200 

Pottawatomies of St. Joseph and Lake Huron..., 100 500 

Pottawattomies of Chicago and Illinois 400 2,000 

Chippewas of Lake St. Clair and Huron 1,000 5,000 

Chippewas of Lake Superior and the region north 
to the Lake of the Woods and to the Missis- 
sippi 2,000 10.000 

Menomonies of Green Bay and Fox River 600 3,000 

Winnebagoes of Western Michigan and Wisconsin . i ,000 5.500 

Miamis, Weas and Piankeshaws 900 4.500 

Sioux and other bands from west of the Mississippi 

and visiting and roving Indians at large.... 600 3,000 



8,390 41,400 
In 1829 the report issued by General Porter, American Secretary 
of War, estimated the Indian population in the Northwest at about 
52,000.^^^ 

There was, then, a more or less fluctuating and nomadic body 
of 40,000 or 50,000 Indians within these territories. On account 
of location or distance many of these were beyond the range and 
influence of their foreign benefactors. At this time, however, we 
must remember that the white population west of Ohio was ex- 
tremely sparse. Indiana and Illinois began to fill up with aston- 
ishing rapidity after the war ; but in Michigan there were probably 
not more than two or three thousand in 181 5, the population for 
another decade grew very slowly, and many of these settlers were 
French or halfbreeds. The presence therefore of so many wander- 
ing and discontented Indians was a serious menace in the western 
part of this Northwest Territory. 



^"Schoolcraft V., p. 708. 
iMSchoolcraft III., p. 591. ( 

58 



It is also difficult to state precisely what was the total annual 
or per capita value of the presents distributed to the nonresidents. 
The statement of McDoualP*" in 1816 that the "little powder pre- 
sented to them does not please the Indians, but is blazened over 
the United States as supplying them with the means of war" min- 
imizes the value just as the report of one who had made a tour 
of the border in 1817 greatly exaggerates the quantity when he 
stated that from £100,000 to £150,000 were expended annually.""' 
A little care must be exercised also to notice whether the word 
"present" in IJritish documents refers to gratuitous gifts or to 
payment for land cessions for all passed under the name of 
presents. ^®^ Moreover, the word "pound" sometimes means pound 
sterling, sometimes pound currency, a much smaller amount. 

One fact, however, is at once patent, namely, that the goods given 
to the tribes after the War of 1812-1815 averaged half as much 
again as the value of those given before the war. During the 
years 1807-1811 inclusive, the average amount so expended by the 
government in Canada was about £12,500."'- By 1823 this had been 
increased to £23,500, £4.500 of which were paid for land cessions and 
the remainder, £19,000, for free gifts. ^"^ But these sums, £12.500 
and £19,000, were expended on presents for the resident as well as 
the visiting Indians. 

During the first decade, after the war, when the Americans began 
to feel the pernicious effect of Canadian generosity Cass took 
pains to obtain an estimate of the value of the presents given to 
the tribes. His report computes the average value given to man, 
woman, or child at $10.00 worth of goods. ^"'' The general tes- 
timony of the Americans consulted by him is that the Indians were 
"never before supplied so abundantly." "''' Ten dollars was, there- 
fore, considered in 1819 as a larger gift than usual. 

We might be led to suppose that Americans would have a tend- 
ency to exaggerate the amount of these gifts, but Canadian records 
verify these estimates. In 1828 the presents to visiting Indians 
averaged about £2 each.^^** Cass, therefore, was probably quite 
correct in his $10.00 estimate for the decade earlier. Kempt. 



'''"McDouall to Military Secretary, June 17, 1816, C. A. Q. 137, p. 15. 

i^oC. A. Q. 323, p. 42. 

"'Maitlaiid to Horton, Nov. 20, 1823, C. A. Q. 333, p. 292. 

"=0. A. Q. 314, p. 25 ff. 

"^Maitland to Horton, Nov. 20, 1823, C. A. jQ. 333, p. 292. 

'"Walker to Cass. 1810, C. A. Q., 156, p. 60. 

"«^Knnggs to Cass, C. A. Q.. 156, p. 63. 

"»Wilson to Hay, C. A. Q. 375, p. 381. 

59 



V 



anxious to modify the prevailing system, made somewhat careful 
investigations to find out the exact state of affairs.^" He was 
informed that for the year 1830 the total value of the presents 
distributed in Upper Canada, not including £4,426 paid for land 
cessions, was computed at £21,903, 17s. currency.^''^ This was the 
retail or merchant's value. They cost the government of Canada 
only £13,142, 6s. 3d. currency. The total number of Indians, in- 
cluding those residing within the United States who received these 
presents, was computed at 17,766. The average value of the 
presents to each person was, therefore, approximately 25s. currency, 
retail value. If the value of the goods delivered to each visitor 
was less than that in 1828, we must remember that this was in 
keeping with Kempt's policy of retrenchment. 

The number of Indians who resided in the United States and 
who received presents by making visits to Amherstburg or Drum- 
mond Island was, in 1830, according to Kempt's report, 4,073. Not 
only had the value of the presents given to each individual decreased 
during the first two years of Kempt's regime but the number of 
visiting Indians was also smaller. Wilson stated that 3,500 non- 
residents came to Drummond's Island alone in 1828^^^ and Cass, 
whose figures are based upon observation from the American side, 
declared that in 1818 as many as 3,000 had crossed over to Maiden. 
Still he admitted that was an unusually large number. 

Routh, of the Canadian Commissariat department, gives us per- 
haps the most definite and reliable estimate of the number and 
location of the Indians who came to the government storehouses 
for their annuities.^"" The following is Routh's statement for the 
year 1833. 

"At Amherstburg: 

Visiting Indians. 

Chippewas 1600 residing in Michigan and Ohio. 

Ottawas 900 residing in Michigan. 

Pottawatomies 500 residing in Ohio and Michigan. 

Shawnees 260 residing in Michigan. 

Six Nations 240 residing in Michigan. 

Hurons 250 residing in Michigan. 

'•"Kempt to Colborne, 1830, C. A. Q. 204, p. 169 ff. 

'"'At that time the Indian Department was limited to £20,000 for presents ex- 
clusive of land payments. 

""Wilson to Hay, C. A. Q. 375, p. 381. Wilson further stated that a great number 
of these had sold their lands to the United States and were now regularly living further 
west and hunting largely to the advantage of the American Pur Company. 

="»Routh to Stewart, March 7, 1834, C. A. Q. 218, p. 168. 

60 
\ 



Munsees 40 residinrj in Michigan. 

Sawkees 210 residing along Lake Superior. 

Total 4,000 

Resident Indians. 

Chippewas i .226 

Total visiting and resident 5,226 

"The number of visiting Indians is not always the same but 
does not exceed the above. 

"At Penetanguishcne : 

Visiting Indians. 

Ottawas and Chippewas, about 3,000 

(The first all in United States, the latter chiefly.) 

Resident Indians. 

"At Penetanguishene, about 400 

"At York, resident Indians 2,596 

"At Kingston, resident Indians 572 

Total II ,794 

See notes 199 and 200 on next page. 

From the United States 7.000 

Resident in Upper Canada 4,794 

Nearly three years later, in 1836, Head, the Governor of Upper 
Canada, made another report. The average number of Indians 
from the United States, he estimated at 3,270 and the value of the 
presents annually issued to those Indians £4,000, both figures being 
about twenty per cent lower than Kempt's estimate for 1830.-°^ 

All the foregoing figures regarding the number of Indians are 
necessarily unreliable. The statement of Cass (1819), Wilson 
(1828), and Routh (1834) would place the total number of vis- 
iting Indians as high as 6,000 or 7,000. Kempt's estimate, in 1830, 
is about two-thirds of this number and Head's, of 1836, a little 
more than half. The numbers necessarily would vary from year 
to year. The total value of the presents as well as the value per 
capita would also vary. We may be justified, however, in accepting 
as the average individual's present from twenty-five to forty shill- 
ings currency and from £4,000 to £5,000 as the average total. The 
reports of Routh, of Cass, and of Schoolcraft show that Maiden, 



*'He!id to Glenelg, 1836, C. A. Q. 391, p. 214. 

61 



rather than Northern Lake Huron, became the metropohtan center 
for distribution.-"- 

To return to the controversy in Canada as to whether these pres- 
ents should be continued after 1830: Proposals to reduce them 
were persistently made by the British Foreign Office and were as 
persistently met by stubborn resistance. Some colonials as well as 
Englishmen opposed the Canadian policy. As early as 1817 a pro- 
test was made by one who had traveled along the frontier and 
believed that there were thousands of pounds annvially and uselessly 
expended. The fine cambrics, Irish linens, etc., which were given 
to the Indians were rarely seen upon them. The Indians made 
promises to the Americans when coming to Canada that they 
would return by the same route. Their goods were then exchanged 
for a little Yankee rum.-"^ Vigorous protests against the Canadian 
policy were submitted from time to time. 

Wilson reported in 1832 that neither Canada nor the visiting 
Indians were being benefited by the distribution of presents. The 
Indians visiting Drummond Island and receiving Canadian pres- 
ents straightway crossed the channel, he said, and, following the 
old custom, exchanged a great part of their presents for liquors. 
He also observed that several children came to the Canadian post 
from a missionary school at Michillimackinac. Upon visiting this 
school he found that the children were being taught principles an- 
tagonistic to the British, and Canadian presents were supporting 
an institution which was disseminating a veneration for the United 
States and a dislike for monarchy.-"* At Amherstburg he found 
the service equally objectionable. At Grape Island the Indians 
were altogether under the management of an American Methodist 
missionary from Pittsburg. He therefore recommended the grad- 
ual reduction not only of the Indian presents, but of the whole 
expensive Indian department. Routh, also, in 1834, questioned 
the expediency of giving presents. The assistance of the Indians, 
he thought, might be obtained by other means if the occasion de- 
manded it.-"'' Colborne, however, desired the continuance of Brit- 
ish generosity and argued that no diminution of the presents should 
be made because if this were done, the Indians would not take their 
laborious journey to obtain them. When their active cooperation 



^''■-Schoolcraft, vol. VI., p. 449. 

^"•■•December 3, 1817, C. A. Q. 323, p. 342. 

=»nVilson to Ifav, Jan. 5, 1832, C. A. Q. 375, p. 281. 

2»^Routh to Stewart, March 7, 1834, C. A. Q. 218, p. 168, ff. 

62 



was necessary the British had cringed before them. It was his 
opinion that they could not cease to give now without forfeiting 
their self-respect ; they could not so easily get rid of an inconven- 
ient debt.-'^*^ The Northwest Company likewise recommmended the 
continuance of a liberal suj^ply of presents.-"'' 

In the meantime a committee of the British Parliament reported 
that the expensive Indian department must be reduced, if not en- 
tirely abolished. This called forth more arguments from the ad- 
herents of the old system. Stewart of the Colonial Office was 
again informed in October, 1835, that the time had not yet come 
when it was either expedient or just to abolish the department, the 
well worn arguments of pledge, custom, the keeping of faith, etc., 
being brought into play.^"® 

The British Foreign Office nevertheless still kept up its efforts. 
Early in 1836 Glenelg informed Head that he believed it would 
be a breach of faith, unjust and impolitic, to withdraw the presents 
suddenly, but he could not say they should be indefinitely perpet- 
uated. He wanted to know if the free consent of the Indian could 
not be obtained for the commutation of presents for money or for 
the immigration of non-residents to Canada. Nothing, however, 
should be done which would not be for the permanent benefit of 
the tribes. Consistently with Canadian policy. Head replied to 
Glenelg that the presents could not be refused. Promises had been 
invariably made never to desert the Indian. No restrictions had 
been made in regard to domicile. He did not deny that it might 
be considered almost an act of hostility for the British govenfment 
to give presents of guns or powder to a people with whom the 
United States were then engaged in civil w-ar, but he said that the 
Americans themselves gave arms to the Indians. In compliance, 
however, with the desire of the British Foreign Office he hinted 
to the Indians in a great council at Manitoulin Island that it would 
be unfair to the Americans to give presents to the Indians living 
in the United States after three years, but he would continue to give 
them, if they resided in Canada. This proposal seemed to be re- 
ceived without much disapprobation and Head therefore thought 
that a declaration to this efifect might be formally made to the tribes 
within a very short time.-"** 



=»«Colborne to Goderich, Nov. 30, 1832, C. A. Q. 374, p. 911. 
20'McGillvary (N. W. Co.) to Harvey, April, 1815, C. A. Q. 132, p. 35. 
=»'*C. A. Q. 224, p. 217. 
"o^Head to Glenelg, Nov. 20, 1836, C. A. Q. 391, p. 216. 

63 



In the early part of the year 1836 there had been an intention 
to discontinue the issue of presents from Amherstburg. The Lieu- 
tenant-Governor of Canada, however, prevented this. Upon hear- 
ing of this action the Lords of the Treasury ordered an investiga- 
tion. Then two months later they approved of Head's proposal 
to discontinue the issue to non-resident Indians after three years. -^° 

The Mackenzie-Papineau disturbances of 1837 and the hard feel- 
ings engendered against the United States by many Canadians on 
account of the sympathy and support the conspirators received from 
Americans had a tendency to prolong the friendly gifts to the 
Indians. Military officials were in favor of this; but sympathetic 
and well meaning men like Ryerson, still argued on behalf of the 
Indian. The services of the Indian during the rebellion of 1837 
and 1838 demanded additional rewards. -^^ Indian presents were 
therefore ordered in 1839 as usual.-^- By 1840, however, the end 
was in sight, it being decreed that after a limited period presents 
should cease to be issued to visitors from the United States. -^^ 

Thus ended a policy which had for its recommendations as far 
as the British were concerned the keeping of pledges, the recogni- 
tion of gratitude, the relieving of wants, and chiefly the preserva- 
tion of the allegiance and good will of the Indian ; but a policy 
which had for evils the maintaining of an expensive institution 
for the procuring and distribution of the presents, the irritating 
of American citizens, and the depraving of the Indian. The vis- 
itors were continually made to feel that the United States were 
not treating them fairly, and that the British were their only true 
friends. Besides this, they suffered actual material losses on ac- 
count of their long journeys from the Mississippi to the Canadian 
frontier. These losses were scarcely compensated for by the few 
dollars' worth of goods, a large percentage of which was squan- 
dered in border grogshops. 



2ioSpearman to Stephens, Feh. 9, 1837, C. A. Q. 240, p. 211; and see Glenelg to 
Head Jan. 20, 1837, C. A. ,Q. 78. 

*"0. A. Q. 42 ; The Indians of Caughnawaga valiantly collected at the village, 
November 4, 1838, against the rebels. Glenelg sent the Queen's thanks and advised 
rewards. 

2'2Normanby to Oolborne, April 28, 1839, C. A. Q. 42. 

"SRussel to Sydenham, Jan. 30, 1841, C. A. G. 51. 



64 



VII. 
APPREHENSION OF AMERICAN AGGRESSION. 

During the eighteenth and the early part of the nineteenth cen- 
turies the average Enghsh minister or legislator was without doubt 
woefully ignorant of American people and affairs ;-'* but in the 
Revolution and the War of 1812 P.ritish regiments and British 
vessels had suffered sufficiently for them to realize, in part at least, 
the strength and danger of their independent offspring.-''' Coupled 
with this appreciation of the growing f>ower of the young republic, 
there was in the United Kingdom and her dependencies a deeply 
rooted fear that they who had hoisted the Stars and Stripes over 
the thirteen original colonics and who had carried it across the Al- 
leghanies and even to the vast regions beyond the Mississippi would 
not be content until that flag waved over the Canadas and maritime 
provinces. Long after the close of actual hostilities of 1814 there 
lingered the suspicion, which had originated before the war and 
was confirmed by the proclamation of Hull, that the people of the 
United States were "influenced by a spirit of aggrandizement not 
necessary to their own security but increasing with the extent of 
their empire." During the negotiations at Ghent in 1814 the 
British commissioners gave no undisguised expression of this sus- 
picion. They declared it was "notorious to the whole world that 
the conquest of Canada and its permanent annexation to the United 
States was the declared object of the American government." -'^ 
The American plenipotentiaries denied this ; but mere denials by 
treaty makers would scarcely convince a people who had read 
certain American boasts of 1812. 



-'*For the ignorance concerning Canadian affairs see Grourlay's address to the 
resident land owners of Upper Canada, Feb. 1818, C. A. Q. p. 324, p. 26; Musgrave 
to Bannister, Oct. 11, 1822, C. A. Q. 334, p. 133; Lord Durham's Report, p. 72. 

="Hart Davis, British H. of C. April 11, 1815; Hans. vol. 30, p. 501. 

^""It is notorious to the whole world that the conquest of Canada and its perma- 
/fcnt annexation to the U. S. was the declared object of the iVmerican government. 
* * * That of late years at least the American government has been influenced 
by a very different policy, by a spirit of aggrandizement not necessary to their own 
security but increasing with the extent of their empire, has been too clearly mani- 
fested by their jn-ngressive occupation of the Indian territories, by the acquisition of 
Louisiana, by the more recent attempt to wrest by force of arms from a nation in 
amitv the two Floridas, and lastlv by the avowed intention of permanently annexing 
the Canadas to the United States." A. S. P. For. Rel. vol. III. p. 713, S. (Brit. 
Plenipotentiary to Amer.) 

65 



In Canada not a few looked upon the Americans as their nat- 
ural enemies and then exaggerated the real danger of a renewal 
of hostilities. Traders, travelers, soldiers, and politicians were 
among those who fancied they could see the Americans lying in 
wait to lay their hands upon Canada. The representatives of the 
great British trading organization, the Northwest Company, re- 
ferred to the "grasping proclivities" of "such a government and 
such a people as the Americans." -^' In the spring of 1815 they 
tried to persuade Drummond to grant no special favors to Amer- 
ican people because there was no instance of an unnecessary con- 
cession being made to the United States that did not engender the 
demand for greater sacrifice. When Captain Hall of His Majesty's 
Royal navy was making a tour of the British and American pos- 
sessions in America during 181 6, he had apprehensions of another 
American attack and recommended therefore, the building of a 
strong fort on the Niagara River near Lake Erie. The proximity 
of the Canadas and their fertile soil were, he said, "all motives and 
very legitimate ones, it must be allowed, to stimulate the inhabitants 
of the United States to such a conquest." Drummond, another 
army officer holding the highest official position in Canada, felt, 
even a full year after the war, that his American neighbors were 
not only unfriendly but bitterly inimical to him.-^^ The order from 
Washington in the spring of 1815 to continue the military strength 
of the United States as it was at the close of the war and the 
strengthening of the United States forts in Michigan further 
alarmed both Drummond and Baker, Even wild rumors found 
their way to the commander-in-chief in Canada that American sym- 
pathizers were not only designing to help the French to release 
Bonaparte, but were soon going to attack Canada and wrest it from 
the British."^ 

This fear of an American attack expressed itself in various 
forms during the first years after the treaty. Proposals seriously 
considered were made to transfer the seat of government of Upper 



•"'N. W. Co. to Dnimmond. April 20, 1815. C. A. Q. 132, p. 25. 

="»Drumniond to Bathurst, May 20, 1816, C. A. Q. 136, p. 222. 

^"A certain Francis Story took the precaution to warn Drummond of a design 
being formulated among the many French in the United States and among FrencW 
sympathizers there to attack St. Helena, to release Bonaparte, and also to attack 
Canada. Addison, acting for Sherbrooke, doubted whether such a scheme had ever 
been contemplated. There is an indication here, however, of the ease with which 
such reports of American invasion could be believed in by Canadian people. (Story, 
to Commander-in-Chief, Sept. 8, 1816, C. A. Q. 137, p. 151.) 

Two years later the Duke of Richmond forwarded a paper from Ross Ciithbert 
stating his belief that certain French generals with American assistance were going 
to make an effort to wrest Canada from the British. (Richmond to Bathurst, Aug. 
11, 1818, C. A. Q. 149, p. 9. 

66 



Canada from York to Kingston because this latter town was more 
securely protected and preferable from a military standpoint. The 
Beauharnois Canal was opposed because of the danger of American 
invasions. A line of communication was proposed between Mon- 
treal and Kingston by way of Ottawa and the Rideau River so that 
the exposed St. Lawrence route would no longer be the only avail- 
able one ;--^ and the Rideau canal was soon under construction and 
military settlements were planted on its banks because there they 
would be protected against invasion and would also serve as a 
check upon the "very bad description of Canadian residents on the 
banks of the St. Lawrence, most of whom [were] by birth, par- 
entage, and education decided Yankees ; so important were these 
objects considered that immense sums were expended for their at- 
tainment." --- Military settlements were advocated by the ministry 
in England as late as 1839.--^ The loss of the navigable channels 
at Barnhart's Island, to which reference will be made hereafter, 
and the colonization of Magdalen Islands, by American subjects 
were chiefly complained of because of the danger to the protection 
and defense of Canada.--* 

Another precaution against or preparation for anticipated strife 
— and a most primitive and foolish one — was found in Prevost's 
recommendation to Bathurst that nine townships near Lake Cham- 
plain, containing 111,000 acres, should remain unsettled because 
"an unsettled country on the frontier is a better protection than 
any population that could be placed there." --■' Acting, it would 
seem, on Prevost's advice, Bathur.st ordered Wilson to allow no 
settlements there and later, on July i. 1816, gave the same orders 
to Sherbrooke. No new grants were to be made in these counties, 
no roads were to be built ; even those colonists already settled 
there were to be induced, if possible, to vacate their homes and 
the existing roads were to be broken up. This action would, it 
was thought, "materially contribute to the future security of the 
province." --" Such absurd regulations naturally could not be 
enforced. In 1821 Dalhousie reported that the soil and timber had 
attracted a considerable population, among whom were felons, 
escaping from justice, from both Canadian and American courts. 



"'Gore to Bathurst, May, 1815, C. A. Q. 319, p. 108. (Robinson to Bathurst, 
July, 1815, C. A. iQ. 319, p. 73.) 
="C. A. Q. 167. p. 56. 
^^■'Russel to Thompson, Sept. 7, 1839. 
=^0. A. Q. 169, p. 13. 

2=5Prevost to Bathurst, March, 1815, C. A. Q. 131, p. 86; C. A. Q. 137, p. 16. 
s^^See Kingsley, IX. p. 41, and C. A. Q. 157, p. 182. 

67 



Precautionary measures were naturally advocated by those who 
would be the most immediately responsible for the defense of the 
provinces. Not only were these alert to see that strategic points 
alons: the boundary line should be decided by the commissioners 
in favor of Upper Canada and that garrisons should be kept along 
the frontier, but, as we have noticed before, they went to a great 
deal of trouble to retain the good will of the native warriors. For 
this reason the officers at ^lichillimackinac before it was evacuated 
anxiously tried to check and correct the report insidiously circu- 
lated that the stipulations in the Treaty of Ghent were a mere 
mockery, that Britain had betrayed the natives.-" 

Drummond, early in 1815, called the attention of Bathurst to 
certain movements in the West which seemed to indicate that the 
United States appeared to be on the point of violating the treaty 
as far as it regarded Indian territory. He pointed out the build- 
ing of forts and the apparent intention of exterminating the tribes. 
Bathurst's reply to such notes of warning were most frequently 
of the type of that sent to an Indian chief wherein he advised the 
tribe to take measures to allay domestic animosities and return to 
their habits of friendly intercourse with the Long Knives.--^ In 
other ways Bathurst exerted himself to promote peace. Drummond 
prepared for self-defense, and as a first step ordered the whole of 
Manitoulin Island to be bought and a military post established on 
the western point of it to act as a substitute for the former post 
at Michillimackinac, the key to the land of the western Indians."^ 
Then presents were distributed to the tribes who made that place 
a rendezvous. ^^^ Care continued to be taken that the British out- 
posts in the West should be occupied by a garrison as imposing 
as could be supplied by the military chest and the available troops. 
This policy of the successive governors was based on the necessity 
of preventing the Americans from "establishing their superiority 
in these distant regions," '^' for it was learned that the Americans 
were sending out "battalions instead of detachments" and were 
strengthening their positions from Detroit to Sault Ste. Marie. 
Such action would tend to win over the hitherto comparatively 



'-■Ellice to Goulborn, April and June, 1815, C. A. Q. 135, p. 225 ff. 

"-Bathurst to Chief of Miiscogees, Sept., 1815, C. A. Q. 150, p. 70. 

"•-Drummdnd to Gore, Dee. 9, 1815, C. A. Q. 320, p. 4. 

""It was fdund "necessary to show the western Indians strong tokens of their 
great father's satisfaction at their conduct." Drummond to Bathurst, Feb. 13, 1816, 
C. A. Q. 146, p. 41. 

2»iDalhousie to Bathurst, June, 1826, C. A. Q. 176, p. 424, and Kempt to Murray, 
Dec. 22, 1828, C. A. Q. 183, p. 319. 

68 



stable allies and make military operations ag^ainst the Upper Prov- 
ince less likely to succeed. The friendship of the Indian must be 
maintained not only for the enriching of the merchant and trader 
but for the strengthening of the power of the military commanders. 

While some of the British were trying to attract or retain the 
Indians, Lieutenant-Governor Gore and others were equally as anx- 
ious to keep out the great number of Americans who began to 
enter Upper Canada as soon as war ceased. Settlers were wanted 
but it was feared that American settlers might be treacherous. 
Lieutenant-Governor Gore urged Uathurst not to abandon the re- 
straint put upon immigration to the Canadas from the United States 
for if free immigration were allowed the loyal population would 
be reduced to defend themselves from the disloyal and the "next 
declaration of hostilities" by America would "be received by ac- 
clamation." -^- It is also reported in Canada that the Americans 
themselves entertained not the slightest doubt as to the Canadas 
"becoming an appendage of the union." ^^^ Lieutenant-Governor 
Maitland in 1818 shared the apprehensions of his predecessor Gore, 
when told that of the eighty schooners employed in navigating Lake 
Erie and capable of carrying, in the event of war, either one or two 
guns of the larger caliber, not more than ten belonged to or were 
navigated by subjects of His Majesty. -^^ In 1822 another Gov- 
ernor, Sherbrooke, after noting the intermarriages, intercourse and 
immigration, doubted very much whether reliance could be placed 
on a continuance of the state of peace. '^^ 

It was not alone military officers or legislators in Canada who 
discussed the probability of a future conflict. Merchants and busi- 
ness men interested in their own and the colonies' prosperity made 
reference to it in memorials for trade regulation. Perhaps some 
of these utterances may have been made for purely political or 
business ends, but nevertheless it would have been folly for shrewd 
business men to try to make capital out of a specter which was 
believed to have vanished from the earth. A memorial of the 
merchants and citizens of Quebec and Montreal in 1818 suggested 
the likelihood of further trouble when they stated that it would 



"2Gore to Bathurst, April 7, 1817, C. A. iQ. 322, p. 129. 

"■•^Dr. Mountain, Bishop of Quebec, after a trip through Upper Canada, related 
that in his travels he met a V. S. Colonel who spoke without disguise as to the view 
of his countrymen upon the Canadas and who entertained not the slightest doubt aB 
to their becoming an appendage of the Union. Kingsley IX. p. 249. 

^iMaitland to Bathurst, Dec. 8, 1818, C. A. Q. 324, p. 180. 

"t'Sherbrooke to Bathurst, March 14, 1822, C. A. Q. 332, p. 114. 

69 



be better to give United States citizens an interest adverse to war, 
namely, an interest in trade by way of Lower Canadian ports and 
waterways. -^^ 

The mutual agreement of both nations to abolish the fleets on 
the Great Lakes and the readiness shown to settle quietly the nu- 
merous disputes of 1815 and 1816 along the western frontier must 
certainly have diminished, but did not entirely dispel, the fear that 
peace was merely temporary, and that the United States would not 
rest contented until they had made another effort to annex Canada. 
In the spring of 1817 a western officer furnished Bathurst with a 
minute description of the topography of the provinces and of the 
inadequate state of the existing militia system in Canada because 
it was believed that the United States' ruling bodies were actuated 
by a desire for conquest or usurpation. The American population, 
it was feared, stood ready armed, the sale of Canadian lands would 
pay the expenses of the campaign, and the conquest would enable 
the United States to disband its northern army.^^^ A London paper 
commenting upon the recent dismantling of the warships upon the 
Great Lakes declared that though the Americans had reduced their 
naval force, the exertions with which that energetic nation was 
cutting roads in the direction of those waters, felling timber and 
preparing it as knees, bends, etc., for vessels of war were circum- 
stances which should excite some attention.-^^ 

At almost the same time a prominent Canadian warned Bath- 
urst that a discontented and mixed multitude from all nations, 
recent immigrants to the LTnited States, were combining with the 
French and other discontented characters already there and were 
anxiously awaiting the return of war. It was a well-known fact, 
he said, that those points of punctilio, namely, the right of search 
etc., were as keenly insisted upon by naval commanders and as 
strenuously opposed by the Americans as at any time previous to 
the war, and apart from the exception of a few engaged in com- 
merce who were kept from venting their sentiments from motives 
of interest, there did not exist a single inhabitant of the United 
States who did not cherish a hostile principle towards the British 
Isles. Excessive pride and an ardent spirt of independence, it was 
stated, made them view the power of Britain with a jealous eye; 



=^''MenioriaI, 1818, C. A. Q. 149, p. 142. 

="E. McDonnell to Bathurst, April, 1817, C. A. Q. 147, p. 375. 

^'Quotation from London paper in Niles Register for Nov. 1, 1817. Niles Regis- 
ter, Vol. XIII. p. 15G. 

70 



the strength and resources of the United States were greater than 
was usually represented ; their population and revenues were in- 
creasing and their advantages in building ships for the navy and 
training men for the army were much greater than those afforded 
the Canadians.-^* 

To some on the American side of the dividing line a future clash 
of arms was likewise considered not an utter improbability. The 
reasons for the declaration of war in 1812 had been largely re- 
moved when the Napoleonic wars had ceased, but the Treaty of 
Ghent was silent on the principles fought for. The right of search 
was held in theory and still practically applied on Lake Erie during 
the first two years after the war. Pittsburg. Buffalo, and Phila- 
delphia papers cried out in horror and demanded that American 
rights be protected there even if force were necessary to do so.-*" 
British intriguing with the Indians kept green the memory of the 
intrigues with Tecumseh and the Prophet, which were generally 
believed to have been in progress for years prior to Madison's 
war message. The instability of the Indian and the plotting and 
scheming of the traders made an Indian rising possible at almost 
any moment, and the bitter spirit manifested along the Michigan 
frontier was certainly no guarantee for permanent harmony. It is 
true the American nation as a whole had sincerely welcomed the 
conclusion of hostilities. They didn't need more territory. Thou- 
sands of square miles of their own western possessions were yet 
unexplored. But their love of independence and resentment of any 
kind of foreign dictation, much less foreign abuse or insult, would 
not let them be imposed upon. This spirit was well exhibited by 
the one who was nearest to the zone of trouble. Cass had suffered 
the most from meddlesome interference by a power which had 
no right to hamper him in his projects, and in the summer of 1817, 
when he purchased land from the Indians to complete the union 
of Ohio and JNIichigan. we find that he did it chiefly for military 
purposes. "Lake Erie," he said, "may once more become the the- 
ater of desperate exertion and skill." -*^ 

It was not only on the American continent, and before the smoke 
of battle had hardly blown away, that we hear of the probability 
of a renewal of the conflict : but through the twenties and on the 
floors of the British Parliament we hear the same topic under 



■^\. J. Christie to Bathurst, July, 1817, C. .V. Q. 117. p. IIG ff. 

""Niles Register, Vol. 13, p. 156. 

="Cass and Mac.Vrthur to Graham, Sept. 29, 1817, A. S. P.. I. A. II. p. 137. 

71 



discussion. In 1820 Marryat in the House of Commons pleaded for 
better trade regulations in order to establish in the Canadian prov- 
inces "a. numerous flourishing and well-affected population, able 
and willing to serve as an effective barrier against the future am- 
bition of the United States." -*- Four years later Bright advocated 
the encouragement of the Upper Canadian colony for the very 
same reasons.^*^ The announcement of the Monroe Doctrine must 
have tended to confirm the opinions of some who were afilicted 
with the idea that the United States wanted to exclude the British 
altogether. During these years members of Parliament like Baring 
and Stanley frankly declared that the time was not far distant when 
the Canadas would no longer be British possessions,-** and such 
debate led Huchinson in May, 1828, to deliver a strong plea for 
the continuance of British control over these provinces and there- 
fore for the strengthening of British influence and power there.-*'^ 
In the following July, Sir Robert Peel alluding to Baring's speech 
spoke thus: "[Mr. Baring] himself said, 'Don't disregard the Amer- 
icans ; they are not inattentive to military science ; they are training 
up their youths to arms ; if that were true was it not wise in time 
of peace to make preparation for an effectual defense?'" He then 
supported Harding's motion that £30,000 be granted for military 
works at Kingston, U. C, and Halifax, N. S., and begged the 
House to consider what would be the effect if the Canadas were 
not well defended. He deplored the fact that some members had 
suggested these colonies be abandoned or allowed to become free 
and independent states. What chance was there, he asked, that 
these colonies could remain free and independent with a powerful 
neighbor like the United States at their side?"" Quebec news- 
papers would have supported Harding's motion for just then the 
Quebec Gazette believed the United States would not dislike an 
opportunity to distinguish themselves in war.-*' 

Shortly after this an "ancient peer of England," who had been 
early acquainted with Jefferson and who professed to be a close 
student of American affairs, openly declared that "Rufus King and 
Mr. Canning had agreed perfectly" with him that in "succession 



^^^MarrvHt's Speech, June 5, 1820, Hansard II series, Vol. I. p. 854. 

"^RriRht's Speech, Mar. 12, 1824, Hansard II series. Vol. X. p. 959. 

"••Baring's Speech, May 15, 1825, Hansard II series. Vol. XII. p. 1036; also his 
speech, Mar. 2, 1829, Hansard II series. Stanley's speech. May 2, 1828, Hansard 
II series, vol. 19, p. 339. 

^"'Huskisson's Speech in H. of C, May 2, 1828, Hansard and also see Christie, 
Vol. III. p. 174, 175. 

^'"Peel's Speech July 7, 1828, in "Peel's Speeches," Vol. I. p. 665. 

"'Quotation from Quebec Gazette in Niles Register, June 20, 1829. 

72 



the objects of American ambition were the Mexican province of 
Texas, the island of Cuba, and the Canadas." They were deter- 
mined to possess them and considered the end would justify the 
means.-*^« During the thirties, too, people along the frontier in- 
sisted that troops stationed there should not be removed lest raids 
be made from across the border, and Lord Durham advocated the 
removal of a "barren and injurious sovereignty" which but tempted 
the "chances of foreign aggression by keeping continually exposed 
to a powerful and ambitious neighbor a distant dependency in 
which an invader would find no resistance."-*"*' 

From 1815 to the outbreak of the rebellion in 1837 the fear of 
raids or of a more generally organized effort on the part of the 
United States to capture the northern part of the continent was 
repeatedly expressed. Even men of the greatest prominence and 
responsibility informed the Colonial Office of the fear of renewed 
attempts to disturb the peace. May we not see here one reason 
why the Canadians and the Colonial Office were so tardy in break- 
ing with the Indians residing in Michigan or further west, and 
must we not read other actions of British authorities in the light 
not only of an aggrandizing spirit of the British, of an insidious 
efifort to render insecure the western territories of the United 
States, but of an effort to be prepared to meet the aggrandizing 
spirit of ambitious and powerful rivals for the northern land and 
trade ? 

Nevertheless with both central governments and the vast ma- 
jority of both peoples sincerely anxious for peace, it was easy for 
sacrifices to be made on both sides to maintain it. Great Britain 
was especially reluctant to encourage discord, so exhausted was 
she by the two decades of war through which she had just passed, 
so enormous was her national debt, and so much was she interested 
in the settlement of European affairs and of Spanish difficulties in 
Central and Southern America. Members of Parliament questioned 
whether Canada was worth the expense involved in its maintenance 
and whether it would not be to the real advantage of England to 



«^»Teynham to a minister, June 3, 1830, C. A. Q. 196, p. 481. 
II series, Vol. 19, p. 339. 

"'bColborne to Glenelg, Nov. 20, 1835, C. A. Q. 387, p. 311, C. A. Q. 244, p. 90; 
Durham's Report, Introd. p. XIII. 



73 



give it up entirely."^"'' The prudent American diplomat, Rush, mean- 
while cleverly worked his way into the good graces of the courtiers 
at St. James and softened the bitterness which Englishmen had held 
against their disobedient offspring. Despite these things, however, 
the apprehension that the ambition of the United States would 
lead to further trouble could not easily be brushed aside. 



""'Marsh in H. of C, Nov. 28, 1814, asks for imports and exports of Canada to 
sec if it is "consistent with prudence * * * to continue the country at war." 

Also Sir I. Coffin, H. of C. Mar. 13. 1822: * * * "It would have teen 
a good thing if Canada had been sunk to the bottom of the sea * * * it costs 
500,000 pounds per annum * * * the sooner the Governor were called home 
and the sooner the assembly and colony were suffered to go, he should be sorry to 
say, au diable, the better."' (Hansard.) 

Also Bell's Weekly Messenger (Niles Register, 14. p. 14. Feb. 21, 1818): "It 
always has been our opinion and we know it personally to be that of one of our 
greatest statesmen this country ever produced that Halifax. Canada, etc., are not 
worth what they acttially cost England and that the true pvint of wisdom would be to 
make the best bargain we could for them to the United States." 



VIII. 

DREAD OF AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS AND INFLU- 
ENCES. 

If there was a lingering apprehension that sooner or later another 
attempt would be made to annex Canada there was also the fear 
that American influence might cause the still loyal colonies them- 
selves to take the initiative and break off from the mother country. 
Commercial intercourse, immigration, intermarriage, the holding 
of Canadian land by American citizens, the spread of American 
newspapers, magazines, and books, the increasing number of Amer- 
ican missionaries and teachers in the province— by all such means 
it was feared that the principles of American democracy were being 
disseminated while monarchial institutions were censured. It was 
feared that American public men were being eulogized and British 
depreciated, that Canadians were being taught to feel the weight of 
civil and ecclesiastical tyranny, and that Canada was thus in danger 
of being slowly but surely separated from the mother country. 

The Upper province especially was intimately bound up with the 
states to the south and east. Much of its imports came from these 
states ; many of its citizens came either from or through them ; 
mail frequently came through the states; the money in circulation 
was almost entirely of Spanish or American pieces, though English 
and French coins were met with occasionally-*^'^; American laws 
suppressing bank notes were felt severely in Quebec; ideas and 
opinions held on one side were reechoed on the other— arguments 
made by Mackenzie against chartered banks, for example, were 
identical with those of the Jacksonian party*^ "— for those who had 
grown up under liberal institutions or had become familiar with 
them through contact, demanded similar ones in their new homes.-"" 
A similar environment gave rise to similar desires. The emigrant 
direct from Europe breathed the air of freedom and often became 
very rapidly "Americanized." This natural evolution was too often 
traced to influences brought to bear upon him by his cousins south 



"8»Gosford to Glenelg, Dee. 21. 1836, C. A. Q. 229, p. 863. 
'"""Hamilton petition, Aug. 29, 1833, C. A. Q. 378, p. 317. 

-*'"^See speech of Sir James Macintosh, Brit. H. of C, May 2, 1828, Hansard 
II series. Vol. 19, p. 331. 

75 



and east of the Great Lakes. ^*^'' Sherbrooke very much doubted 
whether the provinces could long- withstand the "loose demoraliz- 
ing principles introduced" and he "could not avoid remarking * * 
* that in many instances a stronger bias prevailed in Upper Canada 
in favor of the American than the British form of government."-*^* 

On account of the danger of American contamination many ad- 
vocated the need of more stringent qualifications for membership in 
the House of Assembly of Upper Canada because recent immigrants 
from the United States possessing Republican sympathies and strong 
feelings in favor of their native country, might, from the advan- 
tages of wealth, acquire influence sufficient to secure their elections 
to that body.-*** Not only was there an unreadiness to permit these 
immigrants to be eligible for administrative or legislative office, 
but obstacles were even placed in the way of American citizens 
from settling in Canada at all.-^° 

From the lands subject to Talbot's superintendence, the subjects 
of the United States were absolutely excluded. -•'^'^ Beyond the limits 
of Talbot's reservation there were no legal means of keeping Amer- 
ican citizens from coming in and taking up land, if they so desired. 
The British Colonial Office and the War Department would have 
preferred to see Upper Canada fill up with British emigrants 
but this did not deter others. In the fall of 1815 Gore was loath 
to report to Bathurst that numbers from the United States were 
pouring into the provinces and that there was "no legal power in 
the governor to restrain the evil." A provincial statute, however, 
authorized the dismissal from the province, upon very slight grounds, 



s^s^Hall, Travels in Canada and United States, 181C and 1817, p. 154. 

"A lurking hostility to republicanism has been too frequently suffered to color 
our views of the conduct of America." (Fidler, Observations on Professions, etc., 
in U. S. and Can. p. 159.) 

"The mains animus (towards the British) * * * is in fact the food on 
which the great and I am sorry to say the predominant party in the country (U. S. ) 
is nourished." Quotation from letter of Bagot to Lord Binning dated Washington, 
May 6, 1810, found in "George Canning and liis Friends," Vol. II, p. 22. 
see Bagot to Sneyd, Letters of June 12, 19, 1816. Vol. II, p. 22. 

Letters and Dispatches of Lord Castlereagh III series, Vol. Ill, p. 437. 

Mackenzie's Objections, Mar. 14, 1833, C. A. Q. 378, p. 370. 

"'""But when I consider the vicinity of the latter province (Upper Canada) to 
the United States, the population continually flowing in from thence, the constant 
communication and intermarriages between the families on both sides of the line, 
the number of Americans who purchased the best of the lands as soon as they are 
cleared, and every description of property worth having, and when I look to the 
loose, demoralizing principles introduced by these people, I very much doubt whether 
reliance can be placed on the continuance of this tractable disposition * * * Cir- 
cumstances have materially changed since the separation of the two provinces and I 
could not avoid remarking, when I was in Upper Canada, that in many instances a 
stronger bias prevailed in favor of the American than the British form of govern- 
ment." Sherbrooke to Bathurst, Mar. 14, 1822, C. A. Q. 332, p. 114. 

=<'-'Bouchette to Bathurst, Jan. 6, 1823, O. A. Q. 167, p. 244. 

^sfBathur.st to Drummond, Jan. 10, 1815, 0. A. Q. 57. 

»iHalton to Talbot, Oct. 7, 1815, C. A. Q. 319, p. 147. Talbot had a large reser- 
Tation on Lake Erie. 

76 



of all such as had not been resident six months or had not taken 
the oath of allegiance, and therefore Gore sought advice from his 
Executive Council hour best "to give the utmost efficacy to this stat- 
ute," ordered his magistrates to report the names and destination 
of all aliens coming from the United States or elsewhere, and di- 
rected that the oath of allegiance should not be administered to any 
person without a special order.-" The British immigration agent 
in New York, not sharing the same antipathy to American settlers, 
tried to persuade Gore to allow some of these to take up their resi- 
dence in Upper Canada. Nevertheless the Lieutenant Governor 
with the greatest eagerness tried to carry out Bathurst's policy of 
settling the province with British emigrants only.^" 

It must be noticed that during his administration Gore exerted 
himself in this direction to a greater extent than he was legally 
warranted in doing. The popular assembly was more liberal than 
he, but the majority of this parliament, he declared, was composed 
of influential land speculators desirous of promoting their own 
rather than imperial interests. In April, 1817, this assembly re- 
solved that the admission of settlers from the United States should 
be unrestricted and that all orders to the contrary should be 
rescinded. Rather than allow any measure so objectionable to 
him to be carried through, Gore prorogued his legislature and 
immediately informed Bathurst of his motives for so doing. '•''•* The 
deadlock between the governor and his legislative assembly seems 
to show that whatever the motives might be, basely selfish or purely 
honorable, the majority of the parliament, at least, neither resented 
nor feared the American immigration but would have gladly wel- 
comed it. 

When the matter was called to the attention of Bathurst this 
minister supported neither Gore nor the assembly.^^^ Gore was 
mistaken he declared, because American citizens, arriving in the 
province, were entitled to have the oath of allegiance and the oath 
of their intention to reside and settle administered to them ; the 
governor had no discretion to refuse this ; but the assembly were 
in error in supposing that the taking of such an oath could of 



"'Gore to Bathurst. Oct. 17. 1815, C. A. Q. 319. p. 120. 

^•'Gore to Buchanan, July 31, 1816, C. A. Q. 320, p. 319.^ 

^■^"Thp interruption of the flowing migration from the United States wris par- 
ticularly offensive to certain land speculators, the principal of these was William 
Dickson, who, I regret to say, is a member <if the Legislative Council and a commis- 
sioner to administer the oath of allegiance was the tirst and only one reported to me 
who disobeved my instructions, that is, to administer the oath of allecianoe without 
license from the governor." Gore to Bathurst, April 7, 1817, C. A. Q. 322, p. 129. 

'■■■■'■Bathurst to Smith, Nov. 13, 1817, C. A. Q. p. 58. 

77 



itself qualify an American citizen to hold land in the province. A 
previous continued residence of seven years was the indispensable 
condition of being entitled to hold lands and it was His Royal 
Highness' wish that this law should be enforced. Those persons 
who, since the war, had violated this law should be dispossessed. 
Drummond, the administrator at Quebec, bore the same sentiments 
as Gore, and strongly recommended his Parliament to revive im- 
mediately the old regulations respecting aliens, for he feared "dis- 
contented adventurers and mischievous agitators from the continent 
of Europe, who had recently migrated to the neighboring states."-''"'* 
Drummond's successor charged the strong republican sentiment 
of his Parliament to the American education of many of its 
leaders.-^"' '' 

In spite, however, of prejudice of governors and irritating in- 
structions, hundreds of citizens of the United States continued 
to come in and take possession of the land.-'"'" Not until 1825 did an 
order come from the Colonial Office to remove from settlers 
already in Upper Canada the obstacles in the way of their complete 
citizenship in that province.-''' But restrictions were still left on 
prospective immigrants from the United States and this led to a 
clash between the Assembly in Upper Canada, who favored the 
abolition of all restrictions, and Bathurst, who would not go so 
far. An address was sent from the Assembly to England animad- 
verting upon the losses sustained through this action of the colonial 
department. In the absence of commercial and manufacturing 
capital, land was the chief basis of public credit and further popula- 
tion was necessary in order that the land might be occupied and 
made productive. Many United States citizens had come in 
and were among the most useful and loyal subjects and many 
thousands of families would have entered during the last few 
years if they had not been discouraged.-^* Bathurst's reply to 
this address was quite unsatisfactory to the Upper Canadians ; but 
Kempt, who shortly after this came out as Governor, saw the 
expediency of procuring more favorable legislation in favor of the 
foreigners, and he was particularly anxious that the Americans, 



^saDrnnimond's Address to Pari, Jan. 26, 1816, Christie II, p. 252. 
^""'See Kingsford, IX, p. 176. 

=»8Sherl)rooke to Bathurst, C. A. Q. 163, p. 186 and letter by an English farmer 
settled in Upper Canada, 1820, Provincial Archives. 

=»'Bathurst to Maitland, July 22, 1815, C. A. Q., p. 67. 
»8Address from Commons, Jan. 10, 1826, C. A. Q., p. 18. 

78 



settled in Lower Canada, should have as much relief as had been 
granted to those in the Upper Province.-"'" 

So long as it was the desire and policy to maintain special 
privileges for any ecclesiastical organization or to bolster up an 
autocratic irresponsible government, the British governors in the 
provinces and the Colonial Office, which sent them out, were 
perfectly justified in trying to cut off or restrict American immigra- 
tion and American influence. Property and prominent political 
positions were falling rapidly into the possession of these immi- 
grants and so rapidly was this process carried on that the assertion 
was made that if purchases by the people of the United States 
should continue as they had done, Americans would in a short 
time, without treaty or conquest, become the owners of Canada.-"" 
The people in the provinces did not regard tliem as foreigners and 
thus their influence and the proximity of the United States made 
it hazardous to maintain invidious distinctions in favor of any 
particular class or denomination. 

The desire for greater local autonomy increased and as late as 
1838 Lord Durham reported that undoubtedly there were many 
who wished to assimilate the institutions of the province rather to 
those of the United States than to those of the mother country, and 
that a few persons, chiefly of American origin, had entertained 
those designs from the outset. The extensive internal improvements 
of the Republic, producing marvelous growth both in wealth and 
in population, were enviously marked, Durham declared, by the 
discontented provincials.^*^"^ The political, social, and religious con- 
troversies which dated from the beginning of Dalhousie's adminis- 
tration up to that of Sydenham's plainly proved how strong a factor 
this American influence was and how much unconcealed sympathy 
and proffered support the agitators received, if not from the legis- 
lative or executive body within the United States, from many of 
the people who voted into office those governing bodies. En- \ 

lightened statesmen, such as Durham, saw how to direct the spirit 
of this mixed Canadian population. His predecessors had clung 
to the old colonial policy of suppression, of domination, and vainly 
sought to crush out everything tainted with republicanism. 



=="0. A. Q., 193, p. 120. 

^''''Sherbrooke to Bathurst, 1822, C. A. Q. 163, p. 186; Bigg to Stanley, 1833, C. 
A. Q. 379, p. 188; Goxild to Glenelg, 1835, C. A. Q. 224, p. 470. 

2«»»Durham's Report, p. 108 and p. 113. 

79 



Immigration from the United States was thus impeded, but mis- 
government of the provinces — and a misgovernment that native 
EngHshmen like Bennet and Hume vigorously condemned on the 
floors of the British Parliament-'^**'' — not only tended to exclude 
Americans, but was largely responsible for the fact that many of the 
newcomers at Quebec passed through the fertile unoccupied Upper 
Province and took up lands in what is now Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, 
or even in the farther west. That twenty or twenty-five per cent 
of all immigrants by way of the St. Lawrence river did this, is 
perhaps a conservative estimate; and before the rebellion of 1837 
many who had already settled in the Canadas sold their homesteads 
and removed across the border.-''*'*' 

These immigrants who were forsaking Canada and the discon- 
tented who remained were, for the first few years after the war, 
confined solely to the English speaking element ; but later the French 
also became dissatisfied. During the war and for some years aft- 
erwards, the British could count on a hearty support from these 
people in the Lower Province. In 1814 citizens of Quebec memo- 
rialized the Prince Regent to retain Prevost as Governor.-"^ But 



^^obBennet's Speech, March 12, 1824, Hansard II series, Vol. 10, p. 958; Hume's 
Speech, March 15, 1825, Hansard II series, Vol. 12, p. 1035. 

^•^'^Hurne, Apr. 15, 1825, said that he was "creditably informed that eighteen 
out of every twenty emigrants that went to Upper Canada passed on to the United 
States." Hansard II Series, Vol. 12, p. 1360. Astle to Gregory, June 30, 1823, 
C. A. Q. 107, p. 228. Maitland to Gore. Feb. 6, 1838, C. A. Q. 2441 p. 90. 

"I have observed myself and I find from information that many American fami- 
lies settled in this part of the country are leaving it." Buchanan, Chief Emigration 
Agent, Quebec, Statistics for 1834 and 1836. (C. A. Q. 217, p. 680 and 229, p. 877 
resp.) 

1834 Distribution of immigrants, Quebec: 

To Lower Canada 4,090 

To Upper Canada 22,210 

Died 800 

Returned to Gt. Brit 350 

To United States 3,485 

Total 30,485 

1836 Distribution of immigrants, Quebec: 

To Lower Canada 9,600 

To Upper Canada 13,000 

Died 145 

To United States 4,973 

Total 27,728 

""Memoir of Citizens of Quebec to Prince Regent, Nov. 1814, C. A. Q. 135, p. 37. 

"Ce pays une fois perdu, ils n'ont plus de patrie ou' ils puissent tourner les 
yeux; un Anglois a encore sa patrie. Si le Canada passe sous la domination des of 
Etats-unis, Icnr population sera submergee par celle des Etats-unis, et ils deviendront 
nuls, s:ins aiioune influence dans leur governement ; incapables de se proteger, de pro- 
teger leiir religion" * * * ending with the declaration that the British govern- 
ment caused no such dangers to be feared. 

Hall (Travels in Canada and United States, 1816 and 1817, p. 94) says: "The 
Canadians (i. e.. Lower Canadians) bear ai considerable antipathy to the Americans 
whom they dominate Sacres Bastonnais." 

Sherbrooke to Bathurst, May 14, 1822, C. A. Q. 332, p. 14, says that he is con- 
vinced that the Catholics in Lower Canada feel a deep-rooted antipathy to the Govern- 
ment in the United States and have no dread equal to that of one day falling under 
its dominion. He feels that whatever may be the fate of the Upper Prnviucej Amer- 
icans would never be able to establish themselves in Lower Canada. 

80 



by 1839, so completely had the forces brought to bear upon these 
people reversed the situation that, according to Dunham's acute 
observation, "an invading American army might rely on the co- 
operation of almost the entire French population of Lower 
Canada.-"!'^ 

Some persons high in official positions would gladly welcome the 
American negro-"- but there were more who would as gladly erect 
a Chinese wall against American missionaries and teachers. Meth- 
odist ministers in particular met with no cordial reception from 
those who basked in the gubernatorial rays.-"^ The average settler 
undoubtedly welcomed them with open arms, but the high church- 
men and the absolute monarchists fancied that they saw these 
teachers and ministers disseminating dangerous republican doc- 
trines. -''■' Maitland was among those who did not welcome the 
foreign missionaries. In 1819 he extolled the loyalty of the mem- 
bers of the Church of England during the war and made a plea 
for thirty or forty more clergymen from his church, chiefly because 
many Canadians were joining the Methodists, whose preachers 
came mostly from the United States.^"^ A little later he regretted 
the decision of the Washington Congress whereby the London 
Wesleyan Methodists had been prevailed upon to withdraw their 
missionaries, thus leaving the field open to American Methodist 
preachers only. He had just as little faith in the loyalty of Amer- 
ican preachers as he had in the loyalty of American teachers.-"" 

In May, 1827, Strachan congratulated the Church of England 
upon the considerable progress being made by it in Upper Canada, 
the more especially because teachers of the different denominations, 
v^ith a few named exceptions, were all from the United States from 
which they brought sentiments of hostility to the established gov- 
ernment and church.-"^ During the same summer Dr. Weld peti- 
tioned for forty more clergymen from England, the need being 
more urgent he said, since Methodists in the United States were 
establishing themselves in the province of Upper Canada with 



^''Durham's Report, p. 40. 

^-Certain American negroes had petitioned for permission to establish a settle- 
ment in Upper Canada. Gould sympathized with the petitioners, because they were 
being oppressed bv their very "liberal brothers, the professors of liberality, the 
Yankees." Letter'to William Allen, July 20, 1830, C. A. Q. 196. p. 187. 

See also, Knill to Glenelg, Nov. 19. 1835, C. A. Q. 388. p. 416. 

-"Methodist ministers in 1816 were charged with raising an insurrection in the 
West Indies. See Hansard II Series Vol. 34, p. 1216. 

^'^Minutes of British Wesleyan Methodists at Montreal, May. 1827, C. A. Q. 344, 
p. 332. 

so^Maitland to Bathurst. June 4. 1819. C. A. Q. 32.5, p. 222. 

'"'Maitland to Bathurst, Jan. 4, 1821, C. A. Q. 321. p. 2. 

'"Strachan to Horton, May 16, 1827, C. A. Q. 325, p. 342. 

81 



increasing rapidity.-"^ A little later Colborne complained that these 
Methodists had become a political body that they might strengthen 
their influence against the established church. Four or five news- 
papers allied with them, he said, were spreading anti-British feeling 
and attempting to undermine the patriotism of the people. -•'^ Col- 
borne was no more solicitious for the welfare of the white race 
than Kempt was for the red. He believed that among the most 
effectual means of ameliorating the condition of the Indians would 
be the providing of active, zealous, Wesleyan missionaries from 
England to counteract the antipathy to the established church and 
other objectionable principles which the missionaries from the 
United States were supposed to instill into the minds of their Indian 
converts.-'" 

A charge of another kind was made against these missionaries. 
A petition from the bishop and clergymen of Quebec, men inter- 
ested in the pecuniary as well as the spiritual welfare of the denom- 
ination, stated that the most active efforts put forward to secure 
the sale of clergy reserves for educational and internal improve- 
ments were made by Methodists, most of whom were ordained in 
the United States and had no ecclesiastical connection with the 
Methodist conference in England.-"^ Another Episcopal clergyman 
in Upper Canada about the same year (1832) wrote that "most of 
the Methodist ministers in Canada are from the States and 
have a double object: they ostensibly minister in sacred offices 
but secretly and effectively disseminate principles destructive of 
the present order of affairs. They are concerting schemes for 
the establishment of republican institutions and plans of govern- 
ment. "^^^ A short time after this complainant added his grievances, 
the Lords of the Treasury in England refused to admit free of 
duty books and tracts from the United States for the benefit of 
their Bible, Sunday School, and Tract societies, because these books 
and tracts were represented as being politically dangerous. ^^^ 

This persistent and potent resistance to the Methodist ministry 
continually led its champions to deny the charges, and the vigorous 
denial of disloyalty serves only to show how much opposition there 
was to this so-called American influence. Bv addresses of attach- 



»«Dr. Weld to Horton, Mav 16, 1827, C. A. Q. 325, p. 342. 
""■Colbcrne to Hav, March 13, 1829, C. A. Q. 351, p. 85. 
""Kempt to Murray, Mav 16, 1829, C. A. Q. 188, p. 345. 
"'Petition, December, 1831, C. A. jQ. 200, p. 291. 
="'Rev. I. Fidler, "Observations, etc.," p. 124. 
"'Spearman to Stephen, April 7, 1837, C. A. Q. 240, p. 236. 

82 



ment to the British Crown and mother country'^* and through the 
press and on the platform, such men as Ryerson hurled back the 
violent onsets of their adversaries. This leader of the denomination 
boldly rebuked the Lieutenant Governor himself, declaring that 
the majority of the Methodist preachers were British born subjects, 
that they had no dislike for the Church of England and were inno- 
cent of secular interference. He complained that the Lieutenant 
Governor's remarks "must produce the impression in an unin- 
formed mind that the Methodist clergy as a body was a company 
of ignorant, political demagogues, alike divested of religious prin- 
ciple and public character." "^ Hume in Parliament hkewise 
stoutly maintained that Dr. Strachan had grossly misrepresented 
these missionaries in Upper Canada and produced statistics to dem- 
onstrate that far the larger percentage of the Methodist and Bap- 
tist preachers in Canada were born and educated in British do- 



minions.^'^ 



Though Hume and Ryerson and others might deny the charges 
of their adversaries, one must now see, as the Lieutenant Governors 
and the established church then saw, that the Methodists really 
were a force representing and advocating "American principles," 
and if this Americanizing of Upper Canada was baneful as the 
Governor and established church believed it to be, then the Meth- 
odists ought to have been condemned. Ryerson undoubtedly, how- 
ever, had the sympathy and generous support of an extensive group 
and voiced their sentiments in saying that there was no general 
wish expressed in the province for the return of British Wesleyan 
missionaries, that only some political newspapers were clamoring 
for this, that nine-tenths of the European population in L'pper 
Canada were decidedly favorable to the principles of civil and reli- 
gious liberty as advocated in a memorial from the Methodist con- 
ference, and that at least one quarter of the people of the Upper 
Province preferred the ministrations of the Methodist clergy. -^^ 
His references to the provisions made by the constitution of six- 
teen of the United States for the diffusion of virtue, wisdom, and 
knowledge among the humblest classes of the people shows his 
familiarity with the affairs of the United States. The entire de- 
fense of Ryerson only tended to show the growth of the so-called 



='^\ddress from Methodist Conference, 1834, C. A- Q. 382, p. 451. W. M. S. to 
Goulbourn July 3, 1821, C. A. Q. 330, p. 99. 
2^»Ibid. 
'•oHume's Speech, May 2, 1828, Hansard II series, Vol. 19, p. 341. 

=^See note 274. 

83 



American tendencies and theories and the need of greater precau- 
tion if the rulers of Upper Canada were to preserve their old-time 
supremacy over the government and religion of the new province. 

Teachers from the United States were no less undesirable. An 
extremely strong plea for protection against peril from this source 
came from the Reverend Alexander Macdonell, Vicar-General of 
the Catholics in Upper Canada, in the beginning of 1817. He 
suggested that clergymen and teachers of the Gaelic language and 
Catholic faith should be sent out to instruct the Highlanders in 
the Upper Province so that "thus assured by the double barrier 
of their language and religion, they might for a long time stand 
proof against the contagious politics of their democratical neigh- 
bors." He lamented that boarding schools for young ladies in 
both the Canadas were kept principally by American women, and 
that every book of instruction put into the hands of their pupils 
by these schoolmistresses was of American manufacture, artfully 
tinctured with the principles of democratic government and holding 
up American worthies as perfect patterns of every moral excel- 
lence while British public and private characters were represented 
in the most odious terms. With more warmth than pure justice, 
A'lacdonell condemned the crafty arts of these active agents. To 
demonstrate the extent of the territory over which their teachings 
prevailed, he reported that, with the exception of the eight district 
schools, which were taught principally by clergymen of the estab- 
lished church, the education of the youth of both sexes in Upper 
Canada was exclusively entrusted to American teachers.^'^^ 

It seems to have been true that most of the teachers and text- 
books in Upper Canada, as well as a majority of the ministers of 
the gospel, came from the neighboring states. A few years later 
Maitland took occasion to refer to the preponderance of alien 
teachers and repeated almost the same language used by Mac- 
donell. He wished that instructors could be brought in from 
some central school "to the exclusion not only of American mas- 
ters but of their republican apparatus of grammars and lesson books, 
all of which were studiously composed with a view of instilling 
principles into the pupil's mind unfriendly to the existing form 
of government." ^~° More than a year later he was still insisting 
on the enlargement of the school at York for this same purpose, 



="«Macdonell to Bathurst, Jan. 10, 1817, C. A. Q. 323, p. 177. 
""Maitland to Bathurst, Jan. 4, 1821, C. A. Q. 229, p. 2. 

84 



and Durham relates that those in Lower Canada who wished hig^her 
education sout^ht it in American colleges.^"" Undoubtedly seeds 
of discontent were scattered by these foreign teachers and to a 
governor of the old school the need of action was urgent. Malcon- 
tents were finding sympathy, instruction, and inspiration from their 
ambitious neighbors, and it was easy for them to contrast the re- 
tarded development of the Canadas with the progress, freedom, 
and popularly elected governing boards of New York, Pennsylvania^ 
and Ohio.-«' 

One of the favorite methods of airing grievances and attacking 
men and institutions with impunity was found in making use of the 
United States printing presses. In the conservative and best Amer- 
ican newspapers, the administrators of Canada might often find 
matter not complimentary to their system of government, but there 
were some radical papers especially objectionable.-^'" Five years 
before the war of 1812 broke out, there began to be published by 
Wilcox, the Upper Canada Guardian or Freeman's Journal. This 
paper, professing to be a Canadian publication, was printed and 
published in the United States, sustained, it was currently reported, 
by funds gathered in New York, and circulating widely in Can- 
ada.-^- That its aim was to stir up discontent in the British col- 
onies and excite hostilities is evident from the first edition of this 
paper. The editor referring to the Chesapeake affair, wrote therein : 
"We are all confused by the appearance of hostilities between the 
two countries and the honest part of us say that if the United States 
pocket the indignity now oft'ered them, they can no longer style 
themselves a nation." -*^ 

To cite but one other glaring instance of the use of the American 
press, it is necessary to refer only to L'Ami du Peiiple, a paper 
published at Plattsburg in 1827 and then with generous prodigality 
scattered through Canadian parishes.-^* The unlearned and credu- 
lous inhabitants were told that the administration in Canada was 
forging chains to bind them ; their liberties, their rights, their po- 
litical existence were in danger of public destruction ; kings are 
great and powerful only because their subjects bow their knees 
before them ; now was the time to rise up and shake off the yoke 



^'^'Durham's Report, p. 94. 

="See Gonrlav's Address to resident landholders, Feb. 1818, C. A. Q. 324, p. 26- 
and letter to Bathurst, Doc. 3, 1817, C. A. Q., 323, p. 42. 

^'"See, for example. Niles Register, Feb. 11, 1832, p. 437. 

2^=KingsIev, Vol. VIII. p. 94flf: C. A. Q. 312, p. 237; 331 C. A. Q. 311, p. 53. 

^••Wilcox to Cozens, C. A. Q. p. 329, 361. 

"s^See Kingsford IX, p. 355, note. 

85 



of tyranny. It is readily perceived tliat men like Nelson, Lount, 
Papineaii, and Duncombe, who ultimately headed the rebellion of 
1837, found it to their advantage to see that the United States 
papers were supplied with sensational gossip, American sympathy 
and support, apparent if not real, would aid their cause in Canada 
and perhaps raise up for them adherents for an armed force, if 
such should be required. Credible arguments and revolutionary 
teachings could be circulated while the editor and publisher re- 
mained safely ensconced within a foreign territory and entirely 
immune from libel. 

While radical papers were circulating in the Lower Province, 
and while constitutional committees^^^ were forming there — an 
ominous similarity to the action adopted by the revolting colonies 
of 1776 — the local as well as the foreign press was taken advantage 
of by the opposition party in the Upper Province. Lieutenant 
Governor Colborne was alarmed. In his opinion rebellion was 
fostered by radical newspapers subscribed for chiefly by settlers 
who had lived formerly in the United States but encouraged by 
such prominent leaders as Ryerson, "who would have no objection 
in seeing a more democratic form of government established." -^' 

The alarm felt by Colborne and other governors of Canada may 
have been vastly increased by the knowledge that not only was 
there an organized opposition within their own jurisdiction but 
across the border there was also an organized body working against 
their administration. A certain group professing to be British 
royalists and calling themselves the Adelaide Association held meet- 
ings in Philadelphia to prepare an impeachment against Colborne 
for not granting them the privilege of settling in Seymour Town- 
ship. The chairman of this Association, when demanding redress 
from Sir Robert Peel made a significant statement which would 
tend to confirm the worst fears of such men as Maitland and Col- 
borne. Emphasizing the virtue of himself and his friends in order 
further to appeal to the British minister, he said that the royalists 
in the United States were the only men who had so long refuted 
the base calumnies disseminated through the United States which 
were replete with the most vindictive vituperations against the 
laws and constitution of Great Britain.-" 



2K>Aylmer to Hay, Dec. 11, 1834, C. A. Q. 217, p. 578. 

ssnColborne to Hay, May and July, 1832, C. A. Q. 374, p. 601 and 801. 

»'Brown to Colonial Secretary, Oct. 3, 1835, C. uV. Q. 318, p. 210. 

86 



As opposed to the apprehensions of Colborne and others we must 
place the confidence of Talbot who, though American immigrants 
had been shut out froin his reservation, had a better opinion of 
the loyalty and peaceful disposition of these foreign settlers. "The 
disaffected are but few," he wrote, "considering all the noise that 
has been made." Certainly the few who joined the outbreak in 
1837 and the patient endurance for so many years of an almost 
unendurable system argues well for the law abiding nature of the 
mingled American and English residents of Upper Canada before 
the days of Durham and Sydenham. However, Canadian affairs 
had become so critical during the later twenties and thirties that 
members in the British House of Commons also feared that unless 
more attention was paid to Canada these colonies would revolt 
and throw themselves into the arms of their neighbors. It was 
suggested, therefore, that they should be made a more integral 
part of the British Empire for if they were not more closely united 
to the mother country, republican principles would get such a firm 
foothold that all the colonies would be lost, one after the other.^^* 



*«*Pinsent to Murray, May 24, 1829, C. A. Q. 192, p. 514. 



87 



IX 
BOUNDARY LINES AND FREE NAVIGATION. 

In conformity with a provision in the Treaty of Ghent, commis- 
sioners were appointed to define the boundaries westward from the 
point where the forty-fifth parallel of latitude met the St. Lawrence 
river. The boundary line must run through the Great Lakes and 
connecting rivers up as far as the head of Lake Superior, and the 
possibilities for serious disputes lay only in connection with those 
islands or channels which were of special military or commercial 
advantage. Barclay and Porter were the commissioners respectively 
for Great Britain and the United States. In June, 1822, they met 
in Utica and came to an agreement on the boundary line between 
the point on the St. Lawrence river from which they began and 
the Neebish Islands in Lake Huron. In this Utica convention the 
commissioners were unanimous and therefore according to the 
terms of the Treaty of Ghent their decision must be final. 

As soon as the terms of this convention were made known, how- 
ever, a storm of protest was directed against Barclay. The mu- 
nicipalities and legislature of Upper Canada were especially irri- 
tated because he had awarded Barnhart's Island to the United 
States. This remarkably fertile island of over two thousand acres 
lay in the St. Lawrence river near Cornwall. That town was 
among the first to draw up a memorial requesting reasons why 
Barnhart's and the Long Sault Islands had not been assigned to 
Canada ; the main channel, it was stated, was not on the Canadian 
side and the interests and defense of Canada demanded control of 
them.^^^ Maitland, the Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada, 
took up the matter and requested Robert Barrie, the acting naval 
commissioner, to give him a detailed statement of the facts con- 
cerning the boundary dispute in the St. Lawrence river. In the 
fall of 1823 Barrie submitted the results of his investigations. As 
far as Barnhart's Island was concerned, and that was the real bone 
of contention, this report was a stinging criticism of Barclay. Ac- 
cording to Barrie the award seemed to stand upon no reasonable 
basis. The nearest distance from it to the Canadian shore was 



>c. A. Q. 167, p. 97. 

88 



one hundred and twenty-four yards in lii.2:h water and not more 
than one hundred yards in low water. TIic nearest distance to 
the American shore was two hundred and seventy yards, which 
would be reduced by not more than fifteen or twenty yards in low 
water. The island was therefore at least one hundred and forty- 
six yards farther from the American shore than from the Cana- 
dian. The American channel was deep, rapid, and safe; the Cana- 
dian, shallow, rocky, dangerous, and in some places absolutely 
fordable. Every winter there was a clear and easy passage over 
the ice to Canada, but to the American side the ice could not be 
crossed except on rare occasions and under great danger. Both 
in winter and in summer the possessors of this island held an im- 
mense military advantage.'"- 

The Council and Assembly of Upper Canada during the follow- 
ing winter discussed the matter and in January, 1824, presented a 
joint address to Maitland to be forwarded to the king. They, too, 
professed to be unable to understand upon what grounds they 
should have to relinquish all the navigable channels.-"^ An addi- 
tional weight was just then lent to the boundary dispute because 
of the President's recent message to Congress claiming the free 
navigation of the St. Lawrence. The Upper Canadian Legislature 
therefore urged the king to reconsider the St. Lawrence river boun- 
dary and to refuse to grant the demand for free navigation. If 
free navigation were allowed it would be most ruinous to the Brit- 
ish interests, they said, it would endanger connection with His 
Majesty's empire, injure commerce and revenues to an incalculable 
extent, and facilitate illicit introduction of foreign merchandise. -°* 
The Barnhart boundary question had by this time become quite 
serious-"'" and Maitland himself strongly supported the sentiments 
of the address and earnestly desired Bathurst to give the represen- 
tations from his legislature his most serious consideration."" 

Although the boundary question and the demand for free navi- 
gation were two entirely distinct matters, the members of the Brit- 
ish Foreign Office, as well as Maitland's legislature, spoke of them 
in the same breath. Wilmot Horton, commenting on Barclay's ac- 
tions and explanations and basing his conclusions chiefly on Barrie's 



"=Barrie to Maitland, Oct. 25, 1823, C. A. Q. 335, p. 199. 

^C. A. Q. 335, p. 193. 

»*0. A. Q. 335, p. 193. 

"^Not only "some Canadians" expressed apprehensions but the "Legrislature" of 
Upper Canada and every intelligent man of either province expressed the greatest 
surprise and concern" at the Barnhart boundary award. C. A. Q. 343, p. 530. 

"•C. A. Q. 335, p. 185. 

89 



report, urged the necessity of Lord Dalhousie's examining whether 
everything possible had been done affecting this question and in 
the saine paragraph pressed for the best legal opinion upon the 
assumed right of the Americans for free navigation to the ocean. -"^ 

Protests against the award reached such formidable proportions 
that r.arclay felt it incumbent upon himself to explain his reasons 
for acting as he had done and accordingly prepared and submitted 
an elaborate defense. -^^ He said that in order to determine the 
boundary the commissioners at the outset drew up a set of general 
rules by which they should be governed. According to these rules 
the boundary line was to be the "middle Hne inter ripas ;" islands 
intersected by the middle line were to be divided as equally as pos- 
sible between the two nations but wherever an island was inter- 
sected by such middle line into two unequal parts, the nation on 
whose side the larger portion lay was entitled to the election to 
retain the whole or to exchange its portion for an equivalent else- 
where, at the consent of the other party.-"" These rules we shall 
see were not strictly adhered to, especially at the two disputed 
points, Bois Blanc and Barnhart's Island, for in both these places 
Barclay speaks of the channel, rather than the middle line, as being 
the real determining factor. 

From the beginning Barclay had preferred the middle line to 
that of the channel.^"" A channel, he recognized, would have been 
better and more proper in one respect : it would have unequivocally 
established a free navigation but the variety of channels in places 
was a serious objection. A marine survey would have been neces- 
sary to determine where the channel lay. The mutability of chan- 
nels would be a cause for future trouble. The chief objection, 
however, was that the principal channel lay close to the north or 
Canadian shore throughout almost the whole length of the lake 
and river system. There were only two exceptions of consequence : 
one was at Barnhart Island, the other was in Lake St. Clair. Bar- 
clay therefore decided not to favor the adoption of the channel 
line unless ordered to do so by his government. This order was 



not given. 



According to Barclay, Lord Bathurst was partly responsible for 
the award. Previous to the Utica convention Bathurst sent what 



-"C. A. Q. 167, p. 132. 

=">-Bathurst to Maith.nd, July 28, 1825. 

^""Barclay to Canning, Feb. 27, 1826, C. A. jQ. 177, p. 20. 

3<»Barclay to Canning, June 14, 1823, C. A. Q. 167, p. 98. 

90 



he believed to be a very important letter from Goulbourn to Barclay, 
sayinj^ that he thought that tlie recommendations and advice con- 
tained in this letter ought to be followed unless, after due examina- 
tion and a perfect conviction in the justice of their claim, it should 
turn out that the United States were entitled to some of the terri- 
tory therein assigned to Canada. In this letter Goulbourn warned 
the commissioners not to surrender Bois Blanc nor Navy and Grand 
Islands in the Niagara River, as these by the Treaty of 1783 were 
distinctly British. Attention was also called to the importance of 
retaining Bass Island in Lake Erie and the best channel between 
Lake Erie and Detroit, namely, that between Sandusky and Cun- 
ningham Islands. Barclay received another set of instructions 
from Castlereagh, which requested him to carry into effect as far 
as possible certain objects recommended by Commodore Owen. 
Among these were that he should, for military reasons, secure 
Picquet Island in the St. Lawrence, Navy Island, and Bois Blanc ; 
but if Navy Island were secured, Grand Island need not be re- 
quired.^"^ 

In defense of his part in the Utica Convention Barclay therefore 
presented these instructions saying that he had followed them as 
closely as possible, had obtained most of the essentially strategic 
points, and had received more than his due share of landed terri- 
tory. He had received Navy Island but had surrendered Grand 
Island. Niagara, for both positive and negative reasons. In regard 
to Bass Island both by channel line and by line equally distant 
inter ripas it belonged to the United States. Then, as if to divert 
attention from Barnhart Island, Barclay referred to his having 
obtained Grand Island lying off Kingston, one intersected by the 
middle line but unmentioned by Owen, a very large one containing 
some 31,283 acres, and very important because of its proximity to 
the Kingston dockyards. Thompson, the British surveyor, who by 
the way seems to have been a good friend of the British commissioner 
though a rather unreliable surveyor as far as his knowledge of 
the channels on either side of Barnhart's Island was concerned, 
eulogized Barclay for his success in getting this island. "No one 
looked for it," he wrote to Barclay, "at least for more than part 
of it. It was far more than Barrie expected and gentlemen of 
the navy and army and merchants give you praise." ^^^ Barclay 
pleaded also that of the islands intersected by the middle line, 



'"'Barclay to Canning, C. A. Q. 177, p. 20, ff. 
'"^Ibid. 

91 



42,029 acres fell upon the American side and only 31,054 fell upon 
the Canadian side. Nevertheless, of the total 73,083 acres, Canada 
had received 34,500 acres or 3,446 acres more than her legitimate 
share. 

Barclay also emphasized the importance of possessing Bois Blanc. 
He said, "In addition to the sentiments of Sir E. Owen, to general 
opinion and to my own observation, through Mr. Hale, His Maj- 
esty's agent to the commission, I had learned in what estimation 
Earl Dalhousie held this island. It was considered the most im- 
portant on the whole line." •^°* In obtaining Bois Blanc for Canada 
Barclay certainly won the control of the main channel at this point, 
but the "middle line" principle would also have given him this 
island. 

It is rather curious to see how the general rules were set aside 
or shifted from "middle line" to "main channel." When Barnhart's 
Island or Bois Blanc was under consideration the main channel 
seemed to be the determining factor, yet we are told the rules were 
to follow the middle line. In order to obtain Bois Blanc Barclay 
said that it became "absolutely necessary to forsake the rule of a 
channel line in order to preserve His Majesty's interests." Barclay 
mentions channel line here perhaps because he allowed the channel 
line as well as the middle line to be forsaken at Barnhart's, but he 
says the Americans "had lost so many valuable islands by having 
abandoned the channel line that they would not allow another loss 
to occur to them * * * by the occasional adoption of it." ^'^^ 
The British commissioners' argument of the "occasional adoption" 
of the channel line in reference to Barnhart's seems to be purely 
specious. He might better have come out boldly and stated that he 
was dealing with a shrewd bargainer and that the decision was 
purely the result of higgling in the market. The Americans it 
seems were more anxious for the control of the channels and par- 
ticularly of the more important one in the St. Lawrence than they 
were for the mere possession of one half of the intersected islands. 
Barclay further defended his action in regard to Barnhart's Island 
by referring to Mr. Hale, Mr. Ogilvie and others in good standing 
who approved of the decision ; secondly, by showing that Canada 
already had more than its share of the acreage of islands cut by 
the "middle line;" thirdly, by trying to prove from impressions 
derived from his surveyor, Mr. Thompson, that neither the channel 



3o<Ibid. 

92 



on the Canadian side nor the channel on the American side was 
entirely satisfactory ; that a canal would be necessary and that this 
canal could be built more easily on the Canadian side. The advan- 
tages in the channel, natural and artificial, seemed to be balanced. 
His fourth and most weighty argument was that there was no 
need to be alarmed. The United States Commissioner nor no other 
person, he said, had ever given the least suggestion of any intended 
obstruction to the free navigation of the St. Lawrence and Mr. 
Porter had even desired to insert a declaration that their decision 
had been made on that express understanding.''"'' The British Com- 
missioner could thus find no serious objections in the surrender 
of the island. He insinuated that the leaders among those who 
had now complained were a group of smugglers who lived on the 
islands and who feared American justice, should the islands fall 
into the possession of the Americans. 

In defending himself Barclay also mentioned a letter from Lord 
Londonderry received less than a month before the Utica conven- 
tion.^'"* This letter reveals the fact that, after all. the ceding of 
Barnhart's Island was a concession to the Americans based on no 
principle except this that it was necessary in order to prevent fur- " 
ther vexatious delay in arriving at a settlement of the boundary 
up to Lake Huron. Barclay himself ultimately admitted this. Had 
he made the appropriation of Barnhart's and the Long Sault Islands 
to His Majesty a sine qua non. a deadlock between the commission- 
ers, would have ensued and the friendly power to which reports 
must have been referred would either have decided the respective 



^Barclay would not allow this to be inserted because he thought he had no author- 
ity to do so but he told Porter that he considered both parties entitled, by the law of na- 
tions, to the free navigation of all the waters through which the line had passed. To 
support this theory he made reference to the treaty concluded at London in 1802 by 
Lord Hawkesbury and Rufus King, representing Great Britain and the United States 
respectively, which, he stated, '■manifests the opinion that the fact of a channel's 
being bound on both sides by land of one nation is not incompatible with the free 
navigation thereof by another nation.'' Barclay is here referring to the boundary 
line through the St. Croi.x River. Campo Bello Island was given to the British but 
the main channel ran between it and the British side of the river. He says that the 
ministers do not add that there shall be free navigation to and from Campo Bello Island. 
That is left unnoticed as a necessary attendant resulting from the territorial right 
and secured by the law of nations as positively as the right of ingress, egress, and 
regress, through intervening possessions appertains to the proprietor of an estate 
under the common law of England." p. 118. 

'"-''The letter from Lord Londonderry received May 28, 1822, reads as follows: 
"Nor is it easy for us to understand upon wh;il eciuitable principle the .'Vmerican 
Commissioner, after allowing upon every other point the equi-distant admeasurement 
of the central line from main shore to main shore can now make uj) his mind wholly 
to break off from that principle with respect to these three islands. His Lordship'6 
dispatch concluded with the instructions to immediately conclude the boundary as it 
had been provisionally agreed upon by the commissioners, on condition that the 
American commissioner should yield all claims of Bois Blanc upon receiving renun- 
ciation of His Majestv's claim to the other three islands mentioned in His Lordship's 
letter." C. A. Q. 17 7, p. 20 ff. 

n.3 



rights as they at present stand, he thought, or would have given 
Bois Blanc, Lake St. Clair, or Grand Island, Niagara River, in 
recompensed"^ 

In regard to Bois Blanc it is true that the United States had 
been very anxious to obtain it. In 1817 a British admiral had 
stated that one of the main objects of the American clamor was 
to maintain a claim to it. Close beside Bois Blanc there are three 
other islands, namely, Sugar, Fox, and Stony, which are clearly 
within British limits on the middle line principle but which were 
awarded to the United States apparently without any serious strug- 
gle. 

Although the controversy over Barnhart's Island had waxed 
warm, Bathurst refused to break the Treaty of Ghent by reconsid- 
ering the matter and so the boundaries remained fixed up to the 
headwaters of Lake Huron. Here the boundary commissioners 
failed to agree upon the ownership of the Neebish Islands. Barclay 
insisted that two of the Islands including the main channel should 
go to the British and the third island to the United States, and 
refused to yield his point unless direct orders came from his home 
government.^"' As one looks at the official maps, one cannot won- 
der at Barclay's stand upon this question. It is surprisingly strange 
that "that most incompetent diplomatist,"^" Lord Ashburton, 
twenty years later should have submitted to the American demands. 
Such sacrifice was not necessary on Ashburton's part. Barclay 
had already shown more generosity than business ability and per- 
haps in no case more than in this very neighborhood, when he 
allowed the boundary line to pass to the north and east of Drum- 
mond Island. This island had always been regarded hitherto as 
indisputably British territory. ^^^ The British garrisons at the close 
of the war were withdrawn there, remained there and no objections 
had come from the American government that they were still upon 
United States territory. The old "Detour" to the west and south 
of this island had always hitherto been considered the boundary 
line. Nevertheless, before the Utica Convention Barclay had de- 
cided to give up this island for the sake of peaceful settlement. 

When Barclay and Porter disagreed upon the question of the 
Neebish Islands nothing further was then done in regard to the 



''"Barclay to Canning, Feb. 27, 1826, C. A. Q. 177, p. 20 ff. 
""Barclay to Canning, Feb. 27, 1826, C. A. Q. 177, p. 19. 
"'Kingsford, vol. IX., p. 272. 

="Drummnnd to Bnthurst, Aug. 27, 1815, C. A. Q. 133, 81. 

94 



boundary farther west than this point. From Lake Superior west- 
ward the only British then greatly interested in the boundary line 
were the members of the trading companies. These feared lest a 
foreign power should get possession of the portages and other 
means of communication whereby their merchandise passed from 
the west to the east. The Hudson Bay Company, therefore, ap- 
pealed to the British Foreign Office to have their interests re- 
spected.^^'' lUit during all these years that Barclay or others were 
working upon the boundary settlement, the British Foreign Office, 
the British Parliament, and the British press seemed to have been 
almost ignorant of or indifferent to the importance of the whole 
matter. Yet they appointed commissioners to deal with a people, 
alert "full of the tradesmanlike principle and singularly bargaining 
and pertinacious." ^'* In the United States the boundary question 
was mentioned prominently by the President in his speech, the Con- 
vention of Arbitration was laid before Congress, confidence was 
expressed in the justice and evidence of their case, and the subject 
much boasted and advocated by their press."'^ British silence and 
apparent indifference certainly did not tend to advance British in- 
terests. In vain, did Howard Douglas or Charles Vaughan or the 
Hudson Bay Company and others try to arouse the lethargic For- 
eign Office.3'« The British can blame only themselves if British 
statesmen sometimes found it "mortifying to find that Great Britain 
(had) been somewhat outwitted." ^i' 

The demand for the free navigation of the St. Lawrence, although 
discussed by Barclay and Porter in the Utica convention became 
conspicuous for the first time during the early summer of 1823. 
In his December message to Congress Monroe expressed the hope 
that "the just claim of the citizens of the United States would be 
satisfactorily arranged." The concessions already made to Porter 
by the British Boundary- Commissioner doubtless prompted Rush, 
Adams, and Monroe to seek for further concessions. Northwest- 
ern produce wanted an outlet to the sea. The acts of the British 
Parliament of June 24 and Aug. 5, 1822. had stimulated discussion 
within the I'nited States. By giving the Colonial government in 
Canada discretionary power to except any of the Canadian ports 
from those to which American vessels were made admissible it 



"'C. A. Q. 169, C02 and 39 flf. 

="Vaughan to !iay, Jan. 25, 1830, C. A. Q. 195A, p. 297. 
2"Douplas tn Hay, May 16, 18.30, C. A. Q. 195.\, p 112 
^'"Vaughan .o Hay, Jan. 25, 1830, C. A. Q. 195A, p. 297. 

95 



followed that the enjoyment of the navigation of the St. Lawrence 
River was rendered contingent upon British permission. This the 
citizens of the United States would not recognize. Certain regu- 
lations regarding timber had already practically prohibited free 
navigation to the United States vessels.^' ^ 

When the news of the American demand had reached the Leg- 
islative Council of Lower Canada most dire apprehensions were 
aroused. They knew that if the war of 1814 had been continued 
the enemy had intended to interrupt the water communication to 
Lower Canada.-''^^ To comply now with the American claims might 
facilitate such an action in the contingency of future struggles. 
In their extreme anxiety for the welfare of the people whom they 
represented, the Legislative Council of Lower Canada formulated 
an address — in which for petty, spiteful reasons the Legislative 
Assembly did not join — to be sent to Governor Dalhousie. This 
address declared that such a claim was contrary to the Established 
and recognized law of nations and expressed the hope that innova- 
tions upon those laws by so ambitious a neighbor would not be 
allowed. If allowed, the effect would be to weaken the intimate 
connection and dependence upon the parent state ; it would tend 
to systematize contraband trade and the evasions of laws and be 
pernicious in other respects. The Legislative Council also hoped 
that Great Britain would take this occasion to secure by negotia- 
tion the reciprocal right or exercise of navigation during peace of 
the several channels of the St. Lawrence south of 45 degrees, no 
matter in whatsoever territory this channel might happen to be.^^" 
Dalhousie heartily agreed with the sentiments expressed in this 
memorial and earnestly recommended it to the consideration of the 
Colonial Office.321 

While these and other residents in Canada might thus impotently 
express opinions, the power to act lay with those in London and 
between this city and Washington diplomatic correspondence began 
which, strangely enough, contrary to the British custom of making 
concessions rather than of standing firm, did not follow the course 
Monroe had hoped it would. Rush tried at first to get an agree- 
ment concluded between Great Britain and the United States for 



""Rush to Adams, August 12, 1824, C. A. Q., 185, p. 50 ff. 
""Robinson to Bathurst, July 29, 1815, C. A. jQ. 185, p. 50 ff. 
"-"Address from Legislative Council of Lower Canada, February- 7, 1824, C. A. Q. 
166, 26. 

22'March 10, 1824, C. A. Q. 168, 70. 

96 



the free navigation of the river, subject to such fair tolls as might 
be mutually agreed upon, together with the privilege of stopping 
at certain points along the river if desirable. These privileges Rush 
urged as a right. To support his demand Rush argued the analogy 
of the Mississippi River which the British had freely navigated 
and where they used Xew Orleans as a stopping place although as 
a matter of fact they had no treaty right to do so. He thought 
that his claim was well established by the law of nations, for up 
to this time it had been tacitly conceded. Using the arguments of 
Adams, he declared that the exclusive right of jurisdiction over a 
river originates in the social contract and is a right of sovereignty. 
The right of navigating the river is a right of nature, preceding it 
in point of time, which the sovereign right of one nation cannot 
annihilate since it belongs to the people of another. He declared 
that the practice had been substantially recognized by all the parties 
to the European Alliance and particularly by Great Hritain at the 
negotiation of the Vienna Congress treaties which declared the 
navigation of the Rhine, the Xeckar, the Main, the Moselle, the 
Meese, and the Scheldt, free to all nations.^-- Another argument 
used by Rush was that United States colonists had helped Great 
Britain to win the St. Lawrence and therefore they had a strong 
natural right of free use. The United States on its part would, 
as a matter of right, grant British subjects the privilege of navi- 
gating the Columbia River if it were navigable in British territory. 
However well disposed the British statesmen were to treat the 
question as one of mutual convenience, they wouldn't consider it 
at all as a question of right. The St. Lawrence River ran for 600 
miles entirely through British territory. The American claim of 
right, they maintained, precluded all considerations of good neigh- 
borhood and mutual accommodations. They quoted Vattel and 
Grotius in regard to the natural right or law of nature theory to 
disprove the American argument. If the United States meant to 
insist on such demands, that country must be prepared to apply 
by reciprocity the same principle to its own rivers. This, the Brit- 
ish argued, would mean that Great Britain miq-ht navigate even 
the Mississippi River since there was only a short portage bv land 
between British possessions and the headwaters of that river. The 
same general principle would admit British vessels to ascend all 
the navigable rivers of the L^nited States and would lead to extraor- 



'=2Rush to Adams, August 12. 1824, C. A. Q. p. 50 (T and 46. 

97 



dinary and unheard-of demands; it would allow foreigners into 
the bosom of every country. Referring to the treaties of Paris 
in 1814, and Vienna, 181 5, the British plenipotentiaries said that 
neither in the general nor in the special stipulations relating to the 
free navigation of rivers was there anything to countenance the 
principle of a natural independent right as asserted by Mr. Rush. 
The Rhine only was thrown open to general navigation by the 
Paris treaty, and here it was natural for France, in giving up terri- 
tory on the banks of the river to stipulate for a reserve of navigation. 
In case of the Vienna treaty the powers engaged to regulate by 
common consent and closed saying that no change should be made 
except w'ith the consent of all the powers bordering on the same 
river. The powers, therefore, recognized what was due to sov- 
ereignty and what was due to voluntary compact. They challenged 
the American government to present a single instance in which 
the liberty claimed by the United States was exercised explicitly 
as a natural independent right. In the case of the Mississippi River, 
France in 1763 gave up the exclusive navigation of it and the 
fact of stipulating for free navigation would lead irresistibly to 
the very reverse of what was maintained by Mr. Rush. The agree- 
ment later between Spain and the United States for the navigation 
of the river would support the same argument. Great Britain was 
ready to meet the claims of justice or even friendship but colonial 
policy, commercial and national interests precluded such a prepos- 
terous demand.^-^ 

While Great Britain did stand firm during the negotiations of 
1824 to 1827 the merchants of Quebec as late as 1833 had so little 
confidence in the stability of the British plenipotentiaries that they 
again transmitted memorials pleading that the concessions asked, 
for in 1824 be not granted to the American seamen.^^* 



'^British paper on the navigation of the St. Lawrence, 24th Protocol C. A. Q. 

185, p. 1G4. 

^"March 29, 1833, C. A. Q. 311, p. 365. 



98 



X. 

COMMERCIAL RELATIONS. 

Although many things of greater or less importance tended to 
militate against the permanence of the peace agreed to in 1614, 
there was at least one band of union that in itself went a long wa\ 
towards fostering the continuance of peaceful relations. The peo- 
ple of both the northern states and the provinces of Canada were 
knit together commercially. The absence of railroads and canals, 
a similar absence of good country roads, and the consequent ex- 
pense of overland transportation induced the states bordering on 
Canada to export freely their grain, timber, pot and pearl ashes, 
cattle, and horses, via the only natural outlets. Lake Ontario, Lake 
Champlain, and the St. Lawrence River.^'" 

American trade was directed towards the Canadas during the 
years of Jefferson's embargo and routes then opened by smugglers 
were not closed when the embargo was lifted. In fact all through 
and after the war American trade still flowed northward in in- 
creasing quantities.'*^' There was the greater incentive to take 
advantage of the northern route because English goods came into 
Canada almost entirely free from duty and could be purchased 
much more cheaply on the St. Lawrence than at the mouth of the 
Hudson. 

The eighty thousand settlers in Upper Canada in 181 5, and the 
two hundred thousand in Lower Canada found it as advantageous 
to trade with the United States as the Americans did to trade 
with or through the Canadas. The United States could more 
cheaply and more readily than England supply the Canadians with 
many of the necessities and simple luxuries for home anrl farm — 
horses, cattle, tea, tobacco, and such things. As a British colony, 



'soMcMaster III, p. 404. 

'^'McMaster III, p. 460 ff. — By 1812 the produce of ■\'crmont as fur south as 
Middlebury and of every county of Northern New York from Kssex nnd Clinton on 
Lake Champlain to Niagara was gathered at Montreal and Quebec. The Gazettes of 
Albany contained many advertisements of rates of transportation. A barrel of flour 
could be carried from Ogdensbury to Montreal for 88 cents; from Buffalo for $1.50. 
Even during the war the illicit trade flourished briskly. "In fact, my lord," wrote 
Prevost to Bathurst, "two-thirds of the army in Canada are at this moment eating 
beef provided by American contractors drawn principally from the states of Vermont 
and New York." Prevost to Bathurst, August 27. 1814. "Like herds of buffaloes," 
said Izard, "they pressed through the forests making paths for themselves. Were it 
not for these supplies the British forces in Canada would soon be suft"ering from famine 
or their government be subject to enormous expense for their maintenance." Izard 
to Armstrong, July 31, 1814, McMaster IV. p. 66. And see Niles Reg. Vol. 9, p. 43. 

99 



however, the Canadas must have their trade relations defined and 
dictated by the wisdom or interests of the P>ritish Colonial Office. 
When peace was proclaimed commercial intercourse between the 
United States and Great Britain was reestablished as it had existed 
previous to the war although both Americans and Canadians were 
anxious for a freer intercourse. 

Thus it was that immediately after the Peace the United States 
sent representatives to England to obtain further commercial privi- 
leges. The convention of July 3, 1815, was the result of these 
negotiations. By this American ships were allowed to carry articles, 
the growth, produce, or manufacture of the United States, into 
any of the European territories of his Britannic Majesty, subject 
to no higher duty than was demanded from British ships carrying 
like articles, and reciprocal terms were granted to British ships 
entering United States ports. The United States were also granted 
privileges of direct trade with British possessions in the East Indies 
and India, but it was distinctly stated that the intercourse between 
the United States and British possessions of the West Indies and 
on the continent of North America should not be affected by any 
of the provisions of that convention. 

In respect to Canada and the West Indies therefore, the old 
colonial system remained in full force. British colonies in the West 
had been discriminated against to foster, as it was hoped, British 
manufacturing, British shipping, and an imperial merchant-marine 
for the supply of recruits for the British navy. This discrimina- 
tion against Canada was due to the influence of the British mer- 
chant. A month before this convention, a committee of merchants 
interviewed Bathurst trying to prevent any commercial treaty. 
They expressed the opinion that the safest policy was to leave 
trade with the United States to local regulations. From the mer- 
chants' standpoint this was desirable, perhaps, because British mer- 
chants had a predominating influence in the provincial legislatures. 
If a treaty were entered into the merchants insisted that United 
States vessels should be prohibited from the ports of British North 
America.^^- This they claimed would be the only means of pre- 
venting the introduction of tea or Chinese manufactures and East 
Indian goods as well as foreign European wares into His Majesty's 
colonies, to the great injury of the trade and manufactures of Eng- 
land. 



^^C. A. Q. 15G, p. 172; 1C2, p. 258; 170, p. 710; 134, p. 394. 

100 



The convention of July 3. 1815, seems to have been framed ac- 
cording to the wishes of these merchants, though Huskisson at 
this very time in the British ParHament pointed out the need of 
more hberal treatment of the colonies. He noticed how the "long 
established custom of entire and rigid exclusion of * * ' col- 
onies from all commercial intercourse except with the mother 
country" was already breaking down in Portugal and Spain and 
their colonies were benefiting thereby. "I am prepared," said he, 
"to open the commerce of all colonies to all friendly states.""^ 
Raring. Bright, Rurdett and others also stood for a more liberal 
policy but the colonies were not yet to obtain the legislation best 
adapted for their progress. 

While the mother country was making regulations for the trade 
of her Canadian and other colonies, the Canadians themselves were 
making commercial rules with only a partial regard for imperial 
politics. These colonists had little scruples against breaking up 
the time-honored colonial system. By an act of the Lower Cana- 
dian Parliament the Canadian governor and his executive council 
were given complete control of trade by land and inland navigation 
until the local parliament should reassemble. Therefore, on May 
29, 181 5, Drummond, bv proclamation, established temporary inter- 
course between Lower' Canada and the United States, specified 
the tarifif and other conditions under which the trade was to be 
conducted, and declared St. John on the Richelieu and Coteau du 
Lac on the St. Lawrence— and such other places as should be an- 
nounced later— the sole ports of entry.^'^-' Ocean navigation, of 
course, continued to be closed against American vessels but inland 
trade was now practically unhampered except for the small tariff 

duties. 

When news of this proclamation reached England the committee 
of the Council for Trade by way of experiment sanctioned the 
arrangements made by Drummond. The relations of Canada with 
the L^iited States were becoming so important that the committee 
thought it best to cooperate with the secretary of state and the 
colonial legislature in forming such permanent arrangements as 
might seem best suited for carrying on the intercourse and pro- 
moting the highest interests of the Canadas.^''' 

333Huski^on. Speech on Colonial Policy. March 21, 1815. HanBnrd II Scries 
Vol. 12, p. 1099. 

33*C. A. Q. 132, p 154 and 191. 

=»Chetwynd to Goiilbourne, Nov., 1815, C. A. Q. 134, 93. 

101 



; Drummond's temporary arrangements were due to expire April, 
1816, and as no permanent regulations had been made he again 
submitted the matter to his executive council in March, 1816. As 
a result a new proclamation was issued stating that "original laws" 
were to be enforced. These laws, as announced by Drummond, 
were that certain enumerated articles might be imported from the 
United States through the ports of Coteau du Lac, Chateauguay 
and St. John; the enumerated articles included timber and its 
products— planks, hoops, shingles, clapboards, tar, turpentine, etc. 
—pot and pearl ashes, seeds and grains, domestic animals, butter, 
cheese, fresh fish, and "whatsoever is the growth of the United 
States ;" gold and silver coin or bullion, and wampum. Rum, spirits, 
copper coin, and all other goods, wares, and merchandise not enu- 
merated, that is. practically all manufactured goods and all goods, 
the growth or produce of any country other than the United States 
could not enter Canada by way of land or inland navigation. ^2' 

Just previous to this proclamation, Drummond had received a 
report from a committee of his executive council stating that ac- 
cording to the laws which had been suspended in 181 5, no goods 
could be imported or exported by American subjects or aliens of 
any description, and all imports by water must be made in British 
ships. Drummond apparently did not care to exclude Americans 
from participating in the trade, for he did not call attention to 
this in his proclamation. He did, however, incorporate within 
his proclamation a very significant suggestion of the committee of 
his executive council. The committee had said. "Inasmuch as it 

appears that flour, Indian meal, pork, and beef, fresh 

and salted, are not allowed to be imported from the United States 
and consequently are prohibited, the committee, after due delibera- 
tion, humbly submit the following considerations; that it being a 
matter of public notoriety that the government of the American 
states are using every possible endeavor to divert t!ie exportation 
of the produce of those parts of the said states bordering upon the 
Canadas from their natural outlet by the waters of the St. Lawrence 
and to turn the transport thereof to the Atlantic ports 

the committee recommends Drummond because of harm 

this would do to British shipping and because of distress that would 
come to people in Quebec from failure of the harvest this year, 
to give private instructions to the respective collectors at the ports 



''"C. A. Q. 136, p. 127. 

102 



to admit duty free any of the articles of flour, etc., so proliibited 
as aforesaid. "^^^ Drummond accordinj^ly announced that the re^^- 
ular legal duties would be levied on all imports except those via 
Upper Canada and except on salted beef and pork, salt fish, fish 
oil, flour, wheat, peas, furs, and skins. These instructions were 
sent privately to collectors of customs. 

This remission of duties was a policy purely of expediency and 
discretion and not only without the sanction of imperial authority 
but in direct opposition to existing imperial statutes. Hathurst 
objected to Drummond's proclamation in this respect, and when 
Shcrbrooke replaced Drummond during the summer of 1816, the 
private instructions to the provincial collectors were recalled. How- 
ever, a discretionary power was still left in the liands of the 
Governor and when informed of the scarcity of flour in the prov- 
ince and the prospects of a bad harvest, Sherbrooke issued another 
proclamation authorizing the importation from the United States 
during the period of six months of grain, flour, live stock, and 
provisions of every kind free of duty,®'^ 

Meanwhile the demand for freer trade and for permanent reg- 
ulations with the United States became more persistent. United 
States importers were afraid to send in flour lest it be seized,^'*" 
and consequently a shortage in flour still continued. Attempts were 
made to persuade the local governor and council to take action. It 
was asserted that free intercourse between Canada and the United 
States would not only help Canadians but would aid Newfoundland 
and the West Indies, for their merchants could then buy goods 
more cheaply in a Quebec market. The inhabitants of Montreal 
resorting to the customary petition pointed out that ever since 1796 ^l 
the ordinance prohibiting the importation of the articles referred 
to above had been successively suspended and beneficially to the 
province and parent states; the province often needed American 
produce ; Americans therefore sent this produce to Montreal and 
received British manufactures in exchange ; these American goods 
re-exported supplied the West Indian markets and gave employment 
to British shipping.^" 

A bill was accordingly framed by the Lower Canadian Parliament J 
and submitted to Sherbrooke. It repealed all acts and ordinances 



""Report of Executive Council to DiMnimond, Miirch 2R. ISIP, C. A. Q. 136, p. 139. 
"^Sherl.rool<e to Batluirst, Sept., 1815, C. A. Q. 137. p. 169. 



'^Q. A. Q. 147, p. 03. 
•''^'C. A. Q. ]44, p. 21 ff. 



10.1 



affecting" the American trade and substituted a general enactment 
admitting- all the products formerly admitted and in addition flour, 
meal, flaxseed, hempseed, pork and beef, fresh or salted, undressed 
hides, and skins, cheese, fruit, gold and silver.^^- Sherbrooke re- 
served this bill for the royal assent because, by the dispatch of 
July, 1816, Bathurst had forbidden him to sanction any change in 
trade regulations. But Sherbrooke had his own personal objec- 
tion.^"'^ The bill proposed to disestablish the border custom houses. 
This, he thought, would lead to an increase in the smuggling trade. 
Then, although he admitted that the natural outlet for the enu- 
merated products was by way of the St. Lawrence, he questioned 
whether such freedom would not retard the agricultural advance- 
ment of the province and, by teaching the people to look abroad 
for supplies, render them more liable than ever, especially during 
a period of unfavorable relations with the states to those agricultural 
distresses from which they had already suffered severely. The 
imperial committee for trade, upon receipt of this bill, acknowledged 
themselves to be in favor of freer intercourse but agreed with 
Sherbrooke that this bill should not be accepted.^** 
- When a new governor came out in 1818 the merchants of Quebec 
and Montreal and others interested in the prosperity of the province 
presented a memorial to the new governor, Richmond, who for- 
warded it to Bathurst. This memorial gives us a good resume of 
the feelings and wants of the Canadian merchants in 181 8. It stated 
that subsequent to the Treaty of 1794 the inland trade between the 
Canadas and the United States had been placed on a footing of 
nearly perfect freedom ; that this freedom had subsequently been 
restricted by prohibiting the importation of East Indian and Euro- 
pean goods by way of the United States; that in 1816 an old act 
had been enforced totally inapplicable to present conditions; that 
Canadians no longer enjoyed dispensations by order of the Gov- 
ernor-in-council as formerly ; that since the Treaty of Ghent the 
succession of fluctuating and contradictory measures had been very 
detrimental to commerce ; that there was urgent need for general 
and permanent regulations ; and that now since the expiration of 
the convention of 181 5 admitted a change, permanent regulations 
should be established and these ought to permit the utmost freedom 
in importing by land or inland navigation all articles of the raw 



■•'"C. A. Q. 144, p. 21 ff. and see C. A. Q. 132, p. 154. 
='*--Sherl>rooke to Bafhuvst May 20, 1817, C. A. ,Q. 144, p. 21. 
s"Lack to Ooulboum, C. A. Q. 146, p. 73. 

104 



produce of the United States or goods in the first stage of man- 
ufacture. Such regulations, it was said, would tend equally to the 
encouragement of the trade of the province, the employment of 
British ships, and the advancement of the manufacturing and com- 
mercial interests of the empire at large. 

The memorialists were here appealing to the selfish interests of 
the English merchants, manufacturers and seamen in order to break 
down the old colonial system of navigation laws and other restric- 
tions. But they ushered in other arguments to bolster up their 
plea. It was impossible, they said, to prevent the American trade 
in any case and as for political objections there were fewer 
now than formerly because the States were becoming thickly 
populated and it was well to give this big population an interest 
adverse to war — in other words to give them an interest in a trade 
which would be cut oflf as soon as hostilities should begin.^*^ 

While the merchants of Quebec were thus expressing their dis- 
pleasure with the existing system, their American kinsmen were 
likewise regretting that since the Peace of Ghent, Great Britain 
had been trving to enforce the colonial system with unusual vigor. 
A report in Congress declared that the United States had been dis- 
criminated against, that American vessels and property were ex- 
cluded from colonies where other vessels were at times admitted, 
and that as far as Canada w^as concerned it w^as believed that the 
greater portion of the apparent Canadian exports of bread stuflfs 
and even of lumber was really American products and yet all must 
be carried by British vessels.^" Neither Canada nor the United 
States was satisfied with the system, nevertheless on April 20, 1818, 
tlie convention of 181 5 w^as simply renewed for ten years longer 
and direct sea trade between Quebec and the United States was 
still prohibited. ^■'^ 

Richmond, the Governor of Canada, at this time was sincerely 
in earnest in trying to arrange a satisfactory settlement of the 
vexatious trade question, but he w^as uncompromisingly a British 
imperialist and little inclined to give local authorities much real 
powder. He wanted the imperial Parliament to enact such legisla- 
tion as would provide for a fixed revenue to support the Canadian 
civil list without the need of annual applications to the provincial 



"'iPetition from Merchants C. A. Q. 149, p. 142. 

'"Annals of Congress, H. of R,, Feb. 9, 1818. Report of Com. on For. Relations and 
Niles Reg. Apr. 11, 1818, No. 14, p. 113. 

"•Hansard II Series Vol. 39, p. 996, and C. A. Q. 152. p. 310 flf. 

105 



legislature. By a permanent trade and tariff law such revenue 
could be received and the pressing demands for the revision of 
the laws regulating American intercourse could be accomplished. 
He feared, too, that the jealousy and caprice of both the Upper and 
Lower Canadians and the successively enacted temporary statutes 
or administrative proclamations founded on the ephemeral needs 
of the moment would tend to unsettle and destroy what might 
legitimately be a most lucrative and growing source of revenue. 
For these reasons he transmitted for the approval of the Colonial 
Office a copy of a bill framed in his legislature at Quebec, and 
drawn largely in accordance with his own conceptions of what 
would be best. One of its main objects was the confining of the 
entire trade of the Great Lake regions of North America to British 
bottoms.-'*^ 

Nearly five years had already elapsed since the close of the war 
and lower Canada had had only a series of shifting and temporary 
regulations. It had not enjoyed any direct sea communication 
with the United States. By land considerable liberty had been al- 
lowed and much more illegally taken. Discontent prevailed ; pop- 
ulation was increasing comparatively slowly ; the demand for better 
commercial arrangements increased. 

Turning to Upper Canada we shall find that meanwhile this 
province has had somewhat freer communication with the United 
States, and has lived a commercial life almost entirely separate and 
independent from that of its sister colony.^'*'^ One feature of the 
commercial activity of this upper province was the traffic with In- 
dians residing within the United States. Though Congress in 1816 
had passed an act forbidding anyone but an American to trade with 
the Indians, the act appears to have interfered very little with the 
transportation of goods by Canadian adventurers. The Indians 
still clung to the British, and the trading posts at Amherstburg 
or farther west still received large consignments of furs taken 
from Michigan, Wisconsin, or the Mississippi Valley.^'"*' 



-'"Richmond to Bnthuist, July 31, 1819, C. A. Q. 152, p. 313, 315. 

•''•''■'Legislature .loui-nal Upper Canada, Mar. 12, 1816, p. 106. Ontario archives. 

'soSherbrooke to Gore, Dec. 31, 1816, C. A. Q. 322, p. 120, and Gore to Bathurst, 
Feb. 3, 1817, C. A. Q. 322, p. 117, p. 172. 

The Indians in the eastern part of the province also figured slightly in com- 
mercial affairs. Complaints came in that American citizens were monopolizing the 
Salmon fisheries on the Humber and Credit Rivers and dispensing ardent spirits 
to the Indians. Lieutenant-Governor Gore who had stilled the tumult at Amherstburg 
that had been caused by the Indian murder played the same role in this case. 
Sherbrooke had suggested that the American be excluded from these rivers but 
Gore replied that the Salmon fisheries were suffich'ntly protected from abuse and 
any further laws might appear invidious. He then resorted to the more pacific ex- 
pedient of removing the Indians. 

106 



In regard to general intercourse between Upper Canada and the 
United States the provincial legislature of Upper Canada had 
since 1801 to a considerable extent assumed and exercised the 
right of levying duties on imports and making other regulations. 
These laws do not appear to have been disallowed in England but 
rather to have been acted upon without question.^"'^ The restric- 
tions in matters of trade and tariff imposed upon all provincial 
legislatures by the act of 1791 seem to have been entirely overlooked. 
The British Lords of Trade were either poorly informed or little 
interested in the details of the commercial intercourse."'- The 
Upper Canadians, either from inattention to the provisions of the 
navigation laws or from a convenient conviction that they did not 
apply to the inland navigation of the waters separating the Upper 
Province from the United States, so little regarded these navigation 
laws that vessels owned and manned by subjects of the United 
States were permitted without the least interruption to import and 
export goods and even to engage in the carrying trade from port 
to port along the Canadian shores in the same manncF as the purely 
British vessels."" Of the eighty schooners employed in navigating 
Lake Erie not more than ten belonged to or were navigated by sub- 
jects of His Majesty."'* So habituated were the Upper Canadians to 
the practice and so well did it harmonize with the needs and desires of 
the colonists, many of whom had been fellow countrymen of the 
transgressors, that when in 1816 and 1817 one or two of these 
American vessels were seized for violating the British navigation 
laws there was not only objection to the seizures but a general sur- 
prise that such seizure could legally have been made. 

As in Lower Canada it had been customary for the legislature 
to delegate to the Lieutenant Governor-in-Council its real or as- 
sumed power of regulating trade, so in Upper Canada in the spring 
of 1816, on the failure of the legislature to act. Gore took advan- 
tage of a similar privilege and issued an order-in-council establish- 
ing trade regulations and fixing a schedule of duties for the year 



/ 



'siAttorney-General Robinson's opinion, Nov., 1818, C. A. Q. 324. p. 194, and 
Maitland to Bathurst, C. A. Q. 324, p. 180. 
»*C. A. Q. 321, p. 229. 
»'C. A. Q. 321, p. 229 ff. 
•"Maitland to Bathurst, C. A. Q. 324, p. 180. 



107 



ending- April, iSiy.^''^ It must be noticed that according to the 
schedule of 1816 not only raw materials and natural products of 
the United States, but some manufactures were also admitted, the 
duty ranging from about twenty-two to thirty-five per cent. The 
things the settler needed for food or for planting and working 
his soil were admitted free of duty and included beef and pork. 
Furs of all kinds were admitted free so as to foster the Indian 
trade. Extra charges were put upon goods brought in by Amer- 
ican vessels but American shipping was not prohibited.^'^" 

Meanwhile a petition from Kingston merchants revealed the 
attitude of a certain clique who by appealing to the instinct of 
patriotism, fear, fairness to Lower Canada, and by repeating spe- 
cious economic doctrines, endeavored to induce the legislators at 
York to favor their interests rather than the welfare of the set- 
tler.^"^'^ These petitioners regretted that the carrying trade in Upper 
Canada was done by United States vessels, that Lake Ontario was 
becoming a nursery for American seamen, that American goods 
which would have to pay duty in Lower Canada, were admitted 
into Copper Canada duty free, that by such laws and laxness con- 
traband trade was increasing, that through the influx of American 



^''Schedule of duties under the order-in-council, Apr. 18, 181C: 



Anchors 22 

Locks and hinges 22 

Beer, etc., in casks, per gal. 

Beer, in bottles 

Borks 35 

Carriage 35 

Cards, playing 

Cards, wool or cotton 

Candles, tallow 

Candles, wax 

Canes, etc 35 

Cotton goods 25 

Wool and Manu 35 

Cordage, per lb 

Clothing 35 

Fish, dried per quintal.... 

Fish, mackerel, bbl 

Furs, undressed free 



Ad Val. Specific 
Per Cent 



6d. 
Is. 



Is. 6d. 
5s. 3d. 
2 l-2d. 
7 l-2d. 



3 l-2d. 

5s. 
6s. 



Ad Val. 
Per Cent 

Glue, lb 

Gunpowder, lb 

Hemp, cwt 

Iron 

Lead 22 

Malt, bu 

Nails, pd 

Salt, bu 

Paper 35 

Steel, cwt 

Spirits, from molasses 

Spirits, distilled from grain, 
per gal 2^s. 1-2 d. to 

Shoes 

Tobacco, unmanu 

Tobacco, manu 

Wearing apparel and per- 
sonal baggage 



Specific 

5d. 
4d. 

7s. 6d. 
7s. 6d. 

Is. 

2 l-2d. 
Is. 

10s. 
3s. 9d. 

3s. 9d. 
Is. 3d. 
4d. 
7d. 

free 



Glass 30 

All other goods and manufactures of the growth and produce of the United States 
in America not otherwise enumerated, 30 per cent, except wheat, barley, rye, oats, 
peas, beans, pot and pearl ashes, staves, oak and pine timber, beef, porl<, live cattle, 
cheese, butter, and all other provisions, which may be permitted free. 

Twelve per cent upon the above duties to be paid on such articles as are im- 
ported in foreign vessels and every ship, boat, or vessel exceeding 5 tons burden 
belonging to sul)jects of the United States entering any port or harbor of the 
province should pay a duty of 12s. 6d. per ton. C. A. Q. 324, p. 202. 

"'"Journal L. A. U. C, Feb. 8, 1816, Ontario Archives, p. 10. The substance 

of Gore's proclamations of 1816 liad been suggested by a special message from 

the Prince of Ghent and Colonial Office. Gore informed the Assembly of the 
message on Feb. 9, 1816. 

^"Journal L. A. U. C, Mar. 12, 1816, Ontario Archives, p. 106. 



108 



goods for sale specie was beinj^ drained from Upper Canada, and, 
therefore, the petitioners recommended that the carrying; trade be 
done by British boats only. 

In the spring session of 1818 the Upper Canadian House of 
Assembly tried to revise the existing laws and accordingly framed 
a bill which was rejected by the Legislative Council. The bitter 
hostility between the two houses all through these years tended 
to prevent legislation of any kind and over this particular bill such 
disputation arose that no further progress could be made and so 
the administrator, Smith, prorogued Parliament with nothing ac- 
complished. The popular assembly wanted freer trade with their 
neighbors. The legislative council, looking beyond local interests, 
meekly following British instructions, or observing British interests, 
conceived that British shipping would not be sufficiently protected. 
In the fall of 18 18, however, sufficient harmony existed between 
the warring elements to allow a bill to be agreed upon by both 
houses.^^® The governor, Maitland, signed the bill but neverthe- 
less had scruples as to whether he was acting within his constitu- 
tional limits. No particular trade instructions had been communi- 
cated to him by the home government and nothing had previously 
occurred during his administration to call the navigation laws and 
their application to Upper Canada particularly into discussion and 
so he was not fully aware of the delicacy of the question involved. 
His attorney-general informed him that provincial acts had repeat- 
edly exceeded the authority of the legislature, that the present 
one was no exception, and because provincial acts had been acqui- 
esced in since 1801, custom had partly compensated for non-validity. 

This opinion of xA.ttorney-general Robinson clearly shows how 
little the Parliament of Upper Canada understood what was its 
constitutional power. With characteristic frontier freedom 
and with the natural instinct to feel that he is best served who 
serves himself, they did not wait for instructions but ministered 
to their own needs and doubtless never questioned whether this 
was legal or illegal. It seemed necessary and that was a sufficient 
warrant. IMaitland, hov/ever, stood between these pioneers and 
the all-controlling power across the ocean. He was extremely 
anxious that no question should later arise concerning constitution- 
alitv and therefore immediately communicated to Bathurst his 



^""Journal of L. A. U. C, Nov. 27, 1818, Ont.irio Archives; Maitland to Bathurst, 
Dec. 8, 1818, C. A. Q. 324, p. 180. 

109 



doubts in respect to the tonnage clauses and the effect of the navi- 
gation laws in general upon the inland navigation of America, so 
that if he had erred His Majesty's dissent could be announced by 
proclamation before the next spring. Thus a similar haphazard 
system or lack of system prevailed in Upper as in Lower Canada, 
during these first years after the war. 
,' In the absence of definite treaty regulations the trade of Upper 
and Lower Canada was dependent as much upon acts of Congress 
as upon the acts of the Canadian British governments. The United 
States had not yet adopted the high protective tariff system. A 
comparatively low duty was levied on imports for revenue purposes 
only and many foreign goods were admitted duty free. The fur 
trade was profitable and so while Canadians were forbidden to 
trade with American Indians, Canadian furs, and peltry were among 
the goods admitted free of duty. Before the opening of the Erie 
Canal the people of the Northern States, anxious for an outlet 
for their produce, desired freer commercial intercourse with the 
Canadas. When this was not granted by the British government, 
Congress in 1818 intimated to Great Britain that unless certain 
concessions were made, the United States would close its ports 
against British vessels arriving from any colony of Great Britain 
closed against vessels owned by citizens of the United States, and 
would prohibit the exportation in British vessels to all such col- 
onies of any article the growth, produce, or manufacture of the 
United States. Even British vessels taking on board productions 
of the United States in United States ports would be obliged to 
give bond not to land them in a British colony from w^hich vessels 
of the United States were excluded. These provisions would be 
injurious to St. John, New Brunswick, and Halifax, Nova Scotia, 
rather than to Quebec, for Quebec as yet did not enjoy the liberties 
of these two places.^"- Two years later Congress did definitely 
close the ports of the United States against every British vessel 
coming from Lower Canada, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, New- 
foundland or the West Indies, and British vessels must give bond 
not to land United States goods in any of the prohibited places. 

Undoubtedly influenced by movements in the United States and 
by newspaper articles, by petitions and by discontent in the Can- 
adas the tardy Colonial office began, during the early twenties, to 

''^United States Statutes at Large, Chapter LXX, Apr. 18, 1818. 

110 



consider more carefully the Canadian trade problem.^"'" Bathurst 
prepared a sketch of a bill for the res^ulation of the Canadian 
commerce and sent it to (jovcrnor Dalhousie for consideration.^"' 
This proposed bill, though more liberal than the previous statutes, 
kept distinct the sea navigation from the inland trade and con- 
tinued in the British Parliament the sole power of regulating both. 
Certain enumerated goods either for home consumption or for 
exportation were to be admitted duty free, others, subject to duty, 
some entirely prohibited, but in general, these were the same as 
those already existing in Lower Canada. There was a proviso 
that by proclamation the governor, if he deemed it expedient, might 
exclude flour except for exportation. All goods the growth 
or manufacture of the United States which might be admitted 
into England might also be admitted into Canada free of duty 
provided that these goods were exported in British ships to any 
place other than the King's colonial dominions.^"* 

While this bill was being discussed the British merchants, manu- 
facturers, and shippers were not standing idle, for they were anx- 
ious to retain or increase their present profits unfettered by foreign 
or colonial competitors. More than one-half the Canadian imports 
continued to be British manufactures.^''^ The population of Upper 
and Lower Canada was now between four and five hundred thou- 
sand and was increasing at the rate of five per cent per year. The 
trade, therefore, made it worth while to bring influence to bear 
upon Parliament or upon the Colonial Office in particular. The 
British agriculturists were no less active than the merchants. It 
was to satisfy them that no colonial corn had been admitted into 
England for consumption unless the average price of British wheat 
exceeded 67s. per quarter. Hence, all that had arrived in England 
after October 20, 1818, had laid unsold in English warehouses. 
Colonial grain was thus rendered almost valueless. Then in 1821 
and 1822 the colonists w'ere in dire distress, burdened with a double 
monopoly — bound to buy from the l^>ritish only and forced to sell 
their surplus in British markets under most disadvantageous terms. 



""-'"It may seem strniiKP, incredible, that the bounty of nature, the finest 
navigable river in the world should be rendered useless as an outlet to the sea 

but whoever will ci-nsider by what law trade is naturally repulated the 

course which we have supposed the trade of the Canada^ will take under the 
permanency of the existing legislative regulations of Great Britain is neither fanci- 
iul nor far distant." Prom the Quebec Gazette. Aug. 30. in Niles Register for 
Oct. 13, 1821 — an editorial on the opening of the Erie Canal. 

'"■^C. A. Q. 157, p. 129. 

'«*C. A. Q. 157, p. 129. 

•"Young to Wortley, May 28, 1819, C. A. Q. 153, p. 470. 

Ill 



Despite the distress of these years some British merchants still pe- 
titioned GoulboLirn that no alteration be made in the duties, so as 
to give advantages to foreigners greater than those already pos- 
sessed. Other merchants waited upon Bathurst with a similar 
petition.^"" The Canadians, on the contrary, demanded the right 
either to make their own regulations entirely or have the liberty 
to purchase at least all heavy goods in the United States.^**^ By 
addresses to the imperial parliament and by petitions, powerful pleas 
were made for better terms. The hard times and distress, especially 
severe in Lower Canada, were traced to the lack of market from 
produce, and the restrictions upon importations.^''^ 

Although the Canadian felt himself oppressed, he was not so 
generous as to favor proposals to open to American shippers and 
merchants the ports o^ a sister colony, the West Indies. He ob- 
jected because Canada supplied these islands with grain and re- 
ceived rum, sugar, etc., in return. The heavy crops of 1822 gave 
promise that Canada alone could supply all the needs of the West 
Indies if rid of competitors.^"'^ The practical exclusion of colonial 
grain from England compelled the farmers to demand some exter- 
nal market, even if another colony should suffer. 

Fortunately, there were in England itself persistent advocates 
for Canadian rights. One has only to read the debates of the 
House of Commons of February, 1821, or March, 1822, to perceive 
that the Canadian colony was not forgotten. Mr. Marryat, on the 
floor of the House impassionately and forcefully described how 
the colonist was bound by Britain in trade ; how he must draw all 
his supplies from Great Britain ; how everything about him and 
belonging to him was British ; his woolens, linens, and leather, the 
ax with which he felled his timber, the grate with which he cooked 
his food, the plates, the dishes, knives and forks, mugs and glasses 
with which he ate his food, were British ; his surplus means were 
spent in British manufactures and produce and this expenditure 
gave life and animation to British industry.^'" It was again this 
same man who a year later called the attention of the Commons 
to the fact that the levying of a duty on Canadian timber and 
the lowering of a duty on timber from the Baltic had so reduced 



•'""Petition June 19, 1820, C. A. Q. 156, p. 172; Feb. 2.5, 1822, C. A. jQ. 162, p. 
2:.8; Feb. 12, 1824, C. A. Q. 170 p. 710. 

™'March ,30, 1822, C. A. Q. 163, p. 485. 

""-C. A. Q. 1G2, p. 259. 

"""C. A Q. 10.3 p. 522. 

'^"Marryat's speech, Feb. 9, 1821, Hansard II, Series 4, p. 549. 

112 



the price of colonial timber that it would not pay the expenses of 
cutting and transportation. He pointed out how the revenue ih 
Lower Canada had fallen from twenty to thirty per cent in one 
year and this was due to British imposition. ■'''' Others in the same 
debate came to Alarryat's support. Kllice noted the decline in the 
prosperity of the Canadas, especially since 1822. Ricardo argued 
that Canadians ought not to be forced to buy in liritish markets. 
Sir J. Mackintosh declared that "the House was bound to consult 
the feelings of the people of Canada."^""" These men at length pre- 
vailed over Brougham,'*'- who favored the duty on Canadian timber. 
and Bennct,^'^ who thought that the English agriculturists had 
already been sufficiently injured by American grain smuggled into 
the Canadas and reexported as Canadian grain. Revised regulations 
were prepared and received the royal assent on June 20, 1822.^'* 

By this bill Quebec, for the first time, was opened to direct trade 
between United States and Canada. Either British or American 
vessels were permitted to carry enumerated articles which included 
grains, domestic animals, flour, and tobacco, but manufactured 
goods were almost entirely excluded. In the levying of duties there 
was a curious recognition and incorporation of Canadian statutes. 
Imperial duties were assigned but if there were a colonial duty on 
the same article, then the imperial duty should be paid, provided 
the colonial duty were less ; if not, the colonial duty would be paid. 
Ocean navigation was now partially freed from shackles and this 
new liberty diminished the occasion for special privileges and legal 
dispensations as well as for the very illicit intercourse by which 
Canadians had hitherto evaded restrictions and exchanged goods 
with their neighbors to the south.^'" 

Influenced by the British legislation of June. 1822, Congress sus- 
pended the acts of April 18, 1818, and May 15. 1820, a? far as 
Quebec was concerned. By this suspension any British vessel was 
permitted to come directly from that port bringing any article of the 
growth, produce, or manufacture of that colony — except specie and 
bullion — as long as these same goods might be exported from that 
part on equal terms in vessels of the United States.^^" The President, 
however, until assured that tonnage duties had entirely ceased in 



"'Hansard's Debates, Mar. 13, 1822, series 2, vol. 6, p. 1073. 

"'ffSir J. Mackintosh in H. of C, July 18, 1822. (Hansard.) 

'■^Hansard, for Mar. 13, 1822. 

•"■'Ibid. 

'■»Act II, George lY, p. 44, 45. 

••''^'Robinson's speech, Apr. 1, 1822, Hansard, series 2, vol. C, p. 1414. 

""Statute United States, March 1, 1823. 

113 



Quebec, ordered that there be continued the discrimination aj^ainst 
British shippers of the one dollar tonnage and the ten per cent extra 
duty. In retaliation a British order-in-council was issued charging 
the same tonnage and extra duty on American vessels and goods 
entering Quebec and other British ports.^"'^ Thus, these extra 
charges, continued on both sides. In the spring of 1824 Congress 
passed a new tarifif law making a general and considerable augmenta- 
tion in the import duties. This affected the British at home much more 
than it could affect the North American colonies and in the fol- 
lowing year the imperial Parliament revised its tariff laws and, 
recognizing that the "law of customs (had) become intricate by 
reason of the great number of acts relating thereto" repealed all 
existing acts and issued new and detailed regulations for the trade 
of the British possessions abroad. ^^^^ 

By this British act of July, 1825, Quebec, Halifax, and other 
enumerated ports in British North America and the West Indies 
were declared "Free Ports," that is, to these the ships of foreign 
nations might bring the produce of their own country and carry 
back the produce of the British possession on condition that British 
vessels were guaranteed the same favors in the colonies of these 
foreign countries; or if any foreign nation not in possession of 
colonies desired to trade with colonies of Great Britain it might 
obtain this privilege by a special order-in-council from His Britan- 
nic Majesty. In other words, the direct trade of Canada and the 
West Indies was thrown open to the United States provided th« 
United States placed Great Britain among the most favored nations. 
Among a list of articles which no foreign vessel might carry into 
British possessions in America wc find gunpowder, arms, ammu- 
nitions or utensils of war, tea, which had previously been prohibited, 
and beef and pork, which had previously been admitted into the 
Canadas through special orders of the governors. A duty of from 
seven to ten per cent ad valorem was levied on live stock and a host 
of other imports, one shilling per bushel upon wheat, thirty per 
cent ad valorem upon leather and linen manufactures, twenty per 
cent upon soap, sugar, and tobacco, and fifteen per cent upon goods 
not otherwise enumerated, which would include, as far as the Can- 
adas were concerned, the clothing, implements and tools of the col- 
onists. While Quebec was the only authorized seaport for the 



'"British State Papers, 1822 — 23, Vol. X, p. 781. 
^K\n Act of VI George IV, Chap. 114. 

114 



Canadas, inland trade with the United States was permitted subject 
to the same duties and other regulations as for goods brought in 
at Quebec. One of the new features of the act was the establishing 
of bonded warehouses where imj^orted goods might be housed tem- 
porarily free of duty until either sold or reexported. 

When introducing this l)ill luirl P.athurst tried to convince tiie 
Ix»rds that this proposed act was a "complete abandonment of what 
had hitherto been regarded as the English Colonial System * * * 
(that) it could no longer be said that Britain placed her colonies 
in a worse situation with respect to trade than the United States 
* * * (that) the colonies would now enjoy not only the same 
advantages as the United States, but colonial vessels would be en- 
titled to all the advantages of British ships * * * (that) in 
all former measures for regulating the colonial trade prohibi- 
tion formed the rule, admission the exception, but now admission 
was the rule, prohibition the exception. "^'-^ 

This speech is interesting from the fact that the spokesman of 
the Colonial Office is here frankly and officially announcing the 
passing of the old Colonial System. The liberal views of ITus- 
kisson, Marryat, Baring, Bright and others were apparently be- 
coming embodied in legislation. Complete liberty, however, in trade 
and navigation was as yet by no means obtained and not a year had 
elapsed until the House of Commons heard Baring declare that "it 
was not possible to preserve them (the North American Colonies) 
but by giving them all the advantages of a free trade * * * 
Since the American war these colonies felt their own power and 
knew their own interest and it was not possible to retain them by 
violence or subject their trade to unnecessary restraints." ^''^ 

What goods could be legally imported or exported, what goods 
should be free from duty, and \vhat should be the rates charged 
on the unfree goods, whether goods could be carried in British or 
American bottoms, and what should be the ports of entry — ever 
changing regulations in these matters by provincial, British, or 
American government had annoyed and even yet continued to 
annoy and inconvenience the Colonists. To cite but a few cases of 
this. During the year 1823 merchants acting in good faith im- 
ported in American bottoms pot and pearl ashes, etc.. which were 



''""Earl Bathurst in H. of L., June 14, 1825. Hansard, series 2. vol. 13, p. 1132. 

'^''Baring's Speech, May 13, 1826, Hansard II series, Vol. XV, p. 1190: Huskis- 
son's Speech, Feb. 14, 1826, Hansard II series, Vol. XIV, p. 361; Ibid, May 12, 1826, 
Hansard II series. Vol. XV, p. 1144. 

115 



allowed to pass through the customs houses at Coteau du Lac, but 
were seized at Montreal. The case was referred to Governor 
Dalhousie who, appreciating the merchants' position, released the 
goods on account of the uncertainty of the law, and requested the 
home government to take steps to prevent repetitions of this sort.^^" 
A little later merchants of Montreal made vigorous complaints be- 
cause, through lack of definite" information, duties were being 
levied by Canadian custom house officers on goods admitted free 
by imperial acts.^*^ An imperial order, decreeing that the remun- 
eration for custom house officers should be by definite salary and 
not by fees, tended to remove trouble of this kind arising from 
unscrupulous officials who endeavored to collect all the duty pos- 
sible so as to swell their own private purses.^^- Montreal mer- 
chants, however, still felt themselves unprotected from the meddle- 
some legislator, and customs officer, and even after the act of July, 
J825, prayed the imperial government that no further alterations 
be made in the trade relations until time and experience should 
prove the efifects of existing laws.^^^ 

In the United States a similar sentiment prevailed. President 
Monroe realized the baneful results of temporary and unstable 
regulations. In his message at the opening of the second session 
of his last Congress he said that it appeared from long experience 
that no satisfactory arrangement for commercial intercourse with 
the British possessions in America could be maintained by legis- 
lative acts while each party pursued its own course. His propo- 
sition was to regulate commerce by treaty. 

However desirable it might be that the stream should run in a 
less tortuous and tumultuous course, the fates had decreed other- 
wise. No treaty was signed. Instead, an order-in-council of July 
2"], 1826 declared that the United States had not fulfilled certain 
conditions required for the continuance of the act of July, 1825, and 
therefore, the British ports of South America, West Indies, Ber- 
muda, and Newfoundland were to be closed to the United States.^^^ 
To meet this new turn of events the Senate of the United States 
attempted to father a bill abolishing discriminating duties against 
goods imported in British vessels from Lower Canada and other 
British American colonies if the British would recall this order-in- 



■'"fDalhousie to Bathurst, Feb. 27, 1824, C. A. Q. 168, 37. 

"'Kempt to Murray, Oct. 26, 1828, C. A. Q. 183, 82, and 86. 

"'^Bathurst to Maitland June 7, 1826, C. A. Q. 62. 

"3C. A. Q. 176, p. 2. 

""^American State Papers, vol. XIII, p. 366. 

116 



council and a.^rce not to levy any discriniinatin.q; duties on goods 
imported by American vessels into FJritish ports ; but the House 
of Representatives threw out the bill, and President Adams by 
proclamation prohibited all trade and intercourse authorized by the 
American act of 1823 between the United States and the British 
ports in South America, West Indies, Bermudas, Bahamas, and 
Newfoundland."*' This state of affairs continued until Jackson's 
proclamation of October 5, 1830, which reestablished the inter- 
course. The closing of the West Indian ports to the United States' 
trade had been beneficial to the Canadas and these provinces were 
loath to hear that trade would be reopened.^^" They had sent 
their surplus produce to the West Indies and the general carrying 
trade had been increased for American produce of the lake region 
found its way into Canada en route to England rather than to the 
West Indies where otherwise it would have gone. 

The formal convention of July, 1815, renewed in 1818. was again 
renewed in 1827, this time indefinitely or at least until either party 
should give twelve months' notice that they wished it to be annulled. 
The renewal of this convention practically meant nothing except 
the continuance of the existing status; but in April, 1831, the 
Imperial Parliament passed an act favorable to the British ship- 
ping interests, favorable to the American states and territories ad- 
jacent to the Great Lakes, favorable to some infant manufacturing 
industries in Canada but unwelcomed by many Canadian farmers. 

By this act, grain, flour, beef, pork, wood and lumber were hence- 
forth permitted to enter the Canadas duty free ; and these same 
commodities were permitted to enter the British West Indies and 
South America duty free if imported from any other British pos- 
session in North America.^"*"* By the custom house construction 
of this act, American grain and flour imported into the Canadas 
might be reexported duty free to the West Indies and South Amer- 
ica but if reexported to England it would be subject to all tlie 
previous duties and restrictions. American wheat, however, might 
be imported into Canada and there ground into flour and this flour 
reexported on the same terms as colonial flour. The practical re- 
sults of this act were that Canadian wheat was bought up and 



^'"^Senate Proceedings, Feb. 28, 1827, and U. S. Stat, at large, 3 827, App. I, 
p. 796. 

^"C. A. Q. 354, p. 70 — Niles censures the American administration for the con- 
ditions under whicli the W. I. ports were opened to American ships. He says Cana- 
dians paid a lower duty and nearly monopolized the U. S. trade even after 1830. 
Niles Reg. Apr. 9, 1831, page 90. 

•••W'Statutes at Large, 1, William IV, Cap. XXIV. 

117 



shipped to England. Then American wheat was imported to sup- 
ply the Canadian home market and the West Indies. After this 
had been sufficed American imported wheat was manufactured into 
flour and re-exported upon the same terms as Canadian flour. The 
Canadian flour manufacturers, the West India planters, the Colonial 
and British shijxiwners, and every class within England except 
the landed proprietors were all recipients of benefits from this 
act f^*^^ but the York Colonial Advocate declared that Canadian 
farmers were being sacrificed, and New Vork, Pennsylvania, Ohio 
and Alichigan enriched.^^"'^ These states were fully aware of what 
this act meant for them. The great natural outlet for the West was 
now more freely opened and although the Erie Canal ofifered facili- 
ties for transportation to New York, nevertheless a more staple 
market and higher prices were offered in Montreal and conse- 
quently a large part of the produce of the Northwestern States 
passed into Canada.^^®** 

The general course of trade during the early thirties was com- 
paratively smooth, yet petitions continued to be sent to governors 
and to Parliament, and disputes of one kind or another were not 
infrequent ; controversy, for instance, arose over the circumstance 
that tonnage duties continued to be levied on American vessels, 
entering British ports on Lake Champlain, in spite of the fact that 
the order-in-council of July, 1826, had been superseded by another 
order of November 5, 1833, abolishing the tonnage duty of 4s. 3d. and 
extra duty of 10 per cent ad valorem, the United States having 
agreed to abolish duties on British shipping. The affair was settled 
by the Canadians explaining that the charge in Lower Canada by 
the customs house officer there was only a mere trifle to help pay for 
the expenses of the post, and it had been established by a local 
provincial act. Nevertheless, it was discontinued at the expiration 
of the provincial act in 1834.^^^ In Upper Canada similar troubles 
arose over the coasting trade until Colborne sent definite instructions 
to the local collectors in 1833 to cease collecting any charges ex- 
cept such as were enacted from Canadian or British boats in Ameri- 



'"""'Mcntreal Herald quotation in Niles Register, July 2, 1831, p. 310; Montreal 
Gazette quotation of Nov. 8, 1831, in Niles Register, for Nov. 26, 1831, p. 238. 

^'i^York Colonial Advocate (([uotation in Niles Register July, 1831). Americans 
it was claimed would grow wheat and manufacture flour cheaper than the Canadians, 
and the York paper saw how this American grain and flour would now compete in 
the English and West Indies markets against the Canadians. 

■"'"'^Buffalo Advertiser (quotation in Niles Register July, 1831). Cleveland Ad- 
vertiser (quotation in Niles Register, Oct. 29, 1831, p. 165. Niles Register Sept. 7, 
1833, p. 24). 

^"'C. A. G. 223. 

118 



can harbors.^^^ In addition to the complaints in which the United 
States were specially interested, a j^reat deal of discontent was 
voiced in Upper Canada. Because tobacco could be grown near 
Amherstburg- the people of that town sent in their little petition to 
persuade parliament not to diminish the import duty on this ques- 
tionable luxury. ^^'' 

Reports from the Upper Canada Assembly, however, reveal to us 
the fact that the regulations of 1825 to 1830 had proven to be by no 
means satisfactory. The first report on trade and commerce of 
Upper Canada by a select committee in 1835 sums up the long-stand- 
ing grievances of the period. The report is really the work of the 
more radical members, Wilson, MacKenzie, Shaver, McMicking, 
and Durand. but it is nevertheless significant. It states the cause 
of distress in Upper Canada to be due to the restrictions laid on the 
trade of the colony and compares the disadvantages under which the 
land owners and merchants labor as compared with the same classes 
on the opposite frontier. It regrets that laws for the regulation of 
trade are dictated or enacted by the Parliament of the United 
Kingdom and changed and varied without consulting the province, 
that some articles of general utility were either prohibited or could 
be imported only in British ships or from a British port and all 
this was for the advantage of capitalists residing in Europe. ^^*** 

^C. A. G. 223. 

^"Petition Dec. 21, 1832, C. A. Q. p. 36. 

ssoajigport on Trade and Commerce of Upper Canada, Legislative Assembly of 
Upper Canada, 183.5, Appendix C. A. 

The duties levied on products of the U. S. to date from Mar. 4, 1835: 

Horses per head 50s By a later amendment duties were 

Mules 40 levied on leather from Is 3d up to 5s 

Cattle 1 and 2 yrs 3 per lb. And the duty on salt was re- 
Cows 2 and 4 yrs 15 duced from Gd to 3d per bu. 

Oxen 20 

Hogs 10 

Fresh pork, cwt 5 

Fresh beef, cwt 3s 9d Journal of Legislative Assembly of 

Salt pork, cwt 5 Upper Canada for March 14, 1833, On- 
Salt beef, cwt 3s 9d tario Archives. 

Hams, bacon 10 

Butter and cheese 10 

Lard and tallow Ss ' 

Wheat, bu Is 3d 

Rye, corn, bu Is 

Sheep, head Is 3d 

Mutton, cwt 2s 

Pea.se, bu Is 

Barley 9d 

Oats 6d 

Potatoes 6d 

Buckwheat 6d 

Apples, bu 6d 

Hay, ton 10s '^'"'Journal of House of Assembly of 

Flour, cwt 2s Cd Upper Canada, 1821, Reports No. fi, 9, 10. 

Rye flour, cwt 2s Journal for 1834, Ontario archives. 

Biif'-wheat flour 28 Journal H. of A.. U. C. Nov. 27, 

Indian meal 28 1818, May 7, 1819; July 12, 1819. etc, 

]'>eer, bbl Ss in Ontario Archives for earlier discon- 

Cider, bbl 28 6d tent. 

119 



The revenue arising from duty on goods imported from the United 
States for 1834, the year immediately preceding that in which this 
report was brought, was £3,236. 7s. 9^4 d. amount collected 
during the year 1820. These figures not only show the rapid 
growth of the trade but reveal the importance of the matter to the 
le^slative assembly.^^'''' 

With an ever-increasing population in both provinces and in the 
neighboring states, with American settlers continuing to move from 
the United States, and with the better facilities for trade, new roads, 
new waterways, and reciprocity with regard to the shipping and 
coasting trade, it was only natural that there should be a growth in 
the volume and variety of goods exchanged. The settlers in Upper 
Canada, and it was here that the population grew the faster, brought 
with them some household and farm supplies from their native 
country ; but for some time after settling they could not supply 
themselves from their own homesteads with articles that later that 
same farm would yield in abundance. When a bill was before the 
Upper Canadian Legislature in 1835 to lay a comparatively high 
duty on horses, cattle, hogs, sheep, mill machinery and other things, 
many people in the province were opposed because these things 
could not be produced in quantities at all adequate to the demand. 
The supply for these lay in the United States,^"" and the opponents 
of the bill wanted to procure that supply as cheaply as possible. 
It is rather interesting to find that timber which from the earliest 
colonial times had been imported from New York and New Eng- 
land states into Canada by thousands of feet en route to the British 
market, now by 1835 began to move from Canada to New York^"^ in 
payment for American goods imported into Canada. 

While the legitimate trade since 1815 was struggling against 
navigation laws, temporary, confusing, and sometimes conflicting 
enactments, and uncertain information in regard to the interpreta- 
tion or significance of imperial or provincial decrees, a brisk and 
flourishing underground traffic had developed unhampered, even 
fostered by legislation on both sides of the line. We must remember 
that the East India Company held exclusive privileges. The colonies 
had no legal means of getting the produce from the Orient except 
by way of Great Britain and Great Britain itself was supplied by 
this company. By the convention of 181 5 the United States were 



s^C. A. Q. 385, p. 33, p. 263. 
«»'C. A. Q. 155, p. 389. 

120 



granted privileges of direct trade with British dominions in the East 
Indies and in India under the most favored European nation clause. 
This meant that as far as the United States were concerned the 
East India Company's monopoly was broken, but as far as the 
Canada's were concerned, it still held. Because this monopoly did 
hold and because of the necessity of unloading and reloading in 
England, and because of the circuitous voyage, Oriental goods were 
much higher priced in Quebec than in New York ; consequently 
smuggling of Asiatic goods into Canada increased. The long line of 
poorly protected frontier made it possible and easy to smuggle any 
kind of goods, but the professional smuggler, however, dealt chiefly 
in those commodities which were easily transported and would yield 
him great returns for the risk taken. One of the chief of these 
commodities was tea and in this the smuggling trade became so 
systematic and so injurious to the revenues of the Canadian prov- 
inces that in 1824 the Quebec Legislature tried to take effective 
means to prevent it.^^- The council and assembly sent a joint ad- 
dress to England respecting the illicit trade in goods from China 
and India and suggested methods of supplying the inhabitants by 

arrangements with the East India Company or by direct importa- 
tion.^«3 

A letter written by Weltden, who traveled in America in 1823, 
and who professed neither to be engaged nor personally interested 
in any mercantile pursuit, is very illuminating on the actual state 
of the smuggling trade. During the first quarter of the last century, 
he had noticed the extraordinary progress of American shipping and 
commerce in Europe and Asia and when he came to St. Johns, 
New Brunswick, and traveled up the St. Croix River, he discovered 
that a part of this rapid development was due to the fact that Ameri- 
cans were carriers for not only their own people but for the British 
colonists also. Under cover of impenetrable fogs, they supplied the 
maritime provinces with more than half of the Asiatic goods con- 
sumed. He passed up through the partly constructed Erie Canal 
and found that thousands of chests of tea were conveyed by this 
route to Rochester and the Niagara River. Bufifalo had "risen like 
another Phoenix from its ashes" and its prosperity was due to its 
advantageous position as a distributing point. But Weltden be- 
lieved that a great share of its wealth came from its illicit trade w'ith 



»»2C. A. Q. 170, p. 678. 

'"Dalhousie to Bathurst, Feb. 27, 1824, C. A. Q. 168, p. 33. 

121 



the l.'pper Canadians and that a similar condition of affairs ex- 
isted at Rochester, N. ., and on Lake Champlain. He also estimated 
the amount of tea smiuifoled to be twice as great as the amount 
les^itimatcly imported.'"'* The statistics for the port of Quebec cer- 
tainly seem to bear out this statement for, though population had 
been annuall}' increasing, ?nd the people were drinkers of tea 
rather than of coffee, the importations at Quebec, the only port 
where tea could legally enter, had rapidly declined after 1815. The 
statistics for the customs house at Quebec may not be absolutely 
accurate but they sufficiently demonstrate the general truth of Welt- 
den's letter. The amount of coffee imported declined even more 
i-apidly than that of tea because during the war tea could not be 
obtained from the United States as it had been before, and so coffee 
was substituted in part. After the war, coffee was no longer pur- 
chased in such large quantities. ^^° 

When we know the profits that were obtained by smuggling tea, 
we can more easily credit Weltden's statements as to the amount 
smuggled. Tea imported in New York at fifty cents a pound sold 
in Canada for $1.25; that imported at twelve cents per pound re- 
tailed at from twenty-six to twenty-eight cents.^*'*' By an American 
law the merchant who imported tea and exported it within eighteen 
months paid only two and one-half per cent of the duty regularly 
charged. It paid the American merchant to foster smuggling. 

To check this loss of revenue, Great Britain ordered the East 
India Company to send tea direct from China to Quebec and land 
the tea there at reduced prices. Though this lessened the contra- 
band trade it by no means stopped it.^"' By a United States statute, 
all tea imported in American vessels, direct from China was to be 
imported duty free after March, 1823.^"^ This did not help to de- 
crease the Canadian smuggling. Three years later Upper Cana- 
dians were still petitioning the King to protect them against smug- 
glers, but the committees on trade in the British council would 



'"^'Weltden to Horten, April 11, 1824, C. A. Q. 170, p. 677. 

^"''Importations at port of Quebec: 

Tea-lbs. Coffee-lbs. =»"C. A. Q. 170, p. 678. 

1814 487 371 168 972 

1815 ..!!!..!.!!. !314,'450 269i663 ^oTpetition from Chamber of Com- 

1816 218,969 335,441 merce, St. John's, Jan. 31, 1833, C. A. Q. 

1817 254,248 35,995 210, p. 280. 

1818 348,008 50,779 

1819 280,497 43,091 3»«Ibid. 

1820 167,067 55,378 

1821 16!), 865 73,173 

1822 134,379 94,929 

April 11, 1829, C. A. ft. 170, p. 678. 

122 



hearken to none of the proposed plans of the colonists.^"'' And so 
a considerable portion of the tea consumed in Canada continued 
to be carried by American merchantmen. 

Other commodities as well as tea were also smuggled into Canada 
in great quantities. Petitions were sent to the Legislature pray- 
ing for a reducti<'n of duty on whisky, and other spirits to 3d. per 
gallon in tlie hope that a reduction would induce the importers 
to enter these liquors through the lawful chamiels. Lower rates 
when collected would yield a larger revenue than the higher rates 
under existing conditions. Carleton Island was reported to be the ren- 
dezvous for an organized band of smugglers. A great quantity of 
tobacco was confiscated here.*"" Customs house officers, however 
vigilant, were but inadequately prepared to cope with the organized 
smugglers of these early years.^"^ 



!»«c. A. G. 79. 

■••"^Adams' complaint that an American citizen had had tobacco confiscated, C. A. Q. 
162, p. 21. 

■"'See proposals made by customs collectors, at Pictou, Sydney, Boston, 1835, 
and letter of Vaughan to Aberdeen. Oct. 29, 1828, complaining of smuggling, C. A. Q. 
354, p. 162. C. A. Q. p. 185, p. 260. C. A. jQ. 170, p. 263. 



XI. 
TRANSPORTATION. 

The growing tendency in the United States after the war to 
devote more attention to all kinds of internal improvements and 
especially that part of this tendency which sought to develop better 
communication between the western states and the seaboard cities 
was accompanied by a corresponding movement in the Canadian 
provinces. The war of 1812 had revealed to Canadians as well as 
to Americans what a military 'advantage better means of transporta- 
tion would be ; and the construction and location of the early trans- 
portation system of Upper Canada were to a considerable extent 
due to an effort to find better means for moving men and supplies 
than had been offered during the war. It is true that some short 
canals had already been built along the course of the St. Lawrence. 
A canal at Coteau du Lac had been opened in 1780, preceding by 
five years the excavation for the first American canal. In 1782 
and 1783 two other canals, the Cascades and Split Rock, still further 
removed impediments to navigation between Montreal and Kingston. 
It was not until the war period and after it, however, that the really 
significant undertakings were seriously considered. 

The first great overland route constructed in Upper Canada was 
the York Road or Dundas Street. Military exigencies had shown 
the need of such a highway to connect York with both the extreme 
southwest and the military stations of Kingston and farther east. 
The roadbed was cautiously constructed inland from the exposed 
waterfront so that an enemy might not so readily interfere with 
traffic upon it. But the Canadians needed more than the York 
road and the canals already built along the St. Lawrence if they 
were to cope successfully against American arms in any future 
contest, or if they were to stand any chance in the competition for 
the western carrying trade. In providing facilities for both war 
and trade the projected Erie Canal would turn the scales immeasur- 
ably in favor of the Americans. The immigrant in southern and 
western Upper Canada, when bound commercially to a foreign pow- 
er, might soon pay complete homage and allegiance to that country 
instead of to Britain. Thus, it was that the legislators and parlia- 
ments in Canada and England were induced to vote the necessary 

124 



charters and grants for new roadways in Canada, and to place them 
where they did not merely offer better provisions for the welfare 
of the immigrants already settled and to induce more to come, but 
to hold those they had true to their allegiance, and protect the upper 
province against American aggression. 

This statement holds in the case of the great York road and may 
be further verified by considering each of the Canadian canals in 
turn. While the Erie Canal was as yet a reality only in the fertile 
fancies of some New York promoters, the Lower Canadian Parlia- 
ment in 1817 drew up a bill for fostering the St. Lawrence trade. 
This bill urged the consideration of improvements in the navigation 
of that river largely because such improvements would counteract 
the effects of the projected New ^'ork Canal. The Upper Canada 
Legislature, anticipating by a year the efforts of the lower province, 
discussed a bill to make surveys for the Welland Canal and. al- 
though an act of incorporation was not granted until 1824 and 
navigation was not opened until six years later, a letter from Cos- 
grave in 1819 reveals the tone of the efforts made to persuade those 
in power to make the necessary grants.*'^-"' After calling attention 
to the fact that this canal would facilitate an export trade that al- 
ready employed 5,000 seamen and amounted to 1,500,000 pounds 
sterling annually, he^ hoped that the British government would by 
its zeal and decision outstrip the United States government, that 
it would thus bring to Montreal the exports and imports of the 
states bordering on Lakes Erie, Huron and ^Michigan and that the 
West Indies might continue to be supplied from Canadian ports as 
they then were. So much for the commercial advantages of such 
a waterway. But Cosgrave seems to have realized that he must 
offer arguments that would appeal to those who wished to strengthen 
the military defenses, and, therefore, he said that the Welland Canal 
would attract a population along the frontier ''ready to oppose any 
unjust usurpation of British rights when the period arrives that 
these nations may be unhappily involved in war," and it "would 
make these states (Ohio. Indiana, etc.) look up to us (British) as 
protectors, and in case of another war might cause them to separate 
from the Eederal Government and join England. "^^^ 

Again the Rideau Canal, though not commenced until 1826, was 
advocated a decade before that as a military necessitv. Its advo- 



"nVm. Cosgrave to Goulbourn, Jan. 18, 1819, C. A. Q. 153, p. 81. 
Sherbrooke to Bathurst, May 20, 1817, C. A. Q. 144, p. 21. 
Kinsf. i-d. yiis'. of Can. X. 245. 
♦°«Cosgrave to Goulbourn, C. A. Q. 153, p. 81. 

12.-) 



cates declared that it would establish communication between Kings- 
ton and Quebec free from the dangers of navigating a river flanked 
by American artillery ; it would make possible and prosperous a 
military settlement along its route, and it was "safer to get popula- 
tion consolidated than scattered ;" a colony of loyal British soldier- 
settlers would "improve the disposition of the people ;" and "to ex- 
pel as much as possible the American manners from the Canadian 
side of the St. Lawrence (might thereafter) be of vital importance 
to the provinces."'*"^ The government was urged to make grants 

because "in the event of a war the sum advanced would 

be almost immediately saved. "*°^ Bathurst approved of the scheme 
for the canals and military settlements. 

A few years later, in the early thirties, efforts were made to open 
a waterway between the head waters of the Ottawa and Lake Huron, 
and arguments similar to these quoted above were prominently put 
forth. The Americans, it was asserted, were fortunate in being 
able to combine almost immediate commercial advantages with ad- 
ditional facilities for war-like operations on the northern frontier ; 
the Rideau Canal had become necessary to restore the equilibrium of 
attack and defense, but it was also a stimulus to trade and settle- 
ment ; the proposed canal would be likewise commercially profitable, 
for the rapidly increasing population of Michigan and the Northwest 
Territories would undoubtedly avail themselves of this route to the 
Atlantic, and in a political point of view this channel would increase 
the interest of the Northwestern Americans in continuing on friendly 
footing with the British Empire ; it would attract British settlers 
to the v»'est ; and in war an English population on Lake Huron would 
materially add to British resources.*"^ 

While canals and highways were thus promoted in some sections, 
in others roads were absolutely prohibited — and in pursuit of the 
same policy. In the eastern townships it was deemed desirable to 
admit no settlements, a "state of nature" being considered a better 
defense than even a military settlement. Consequently no system 
of transportation was adopted and even the roads which did exist 
were not repaired. Here was an effort to suppress the natural 
growth of one part of Lower Canada m order to protect the rest. 
All attempts to keep these townships in a state of nature proved. 



«'Frans Cockburn, Lt. Col. and Dep. Qr. Mast. Gen., report Nov. 26, 1818, C. A. ft. 
152, p. 9; and letters C. A. Q. 167 B. p. r,6. 

""Reports on Ottawa Canals, C. A. Q. 161, p. 318. Also see Diary of Nicholas 
Garrv, Roy. Sac. of Can. II Ser. vol. VI. p. 95. 

^""ShirrefT to Howick, Sept. 29, 1832, C. A. ft. 375 p. 361. 

126 



however, to be very futile ; but we are not concerned with that. 
The motive on the part of the British in prohibiting roads here was 
to strengthen the mihtary defenses of their colonies and this same 
motive was apparently stronger than any other in prompting the 
legislators to vote supplies for the construction of the other roads 
and canals. Behind all this was the prevailing opinion that the 
Americans were simply awaiting their opportunity to annex the 
Canadian colonies. British pride could not sufifer such a shock as 
the loss of additional North American colonies. Moreover, British 
capitalists, merchants, and seamen had pecuniary reasons for re- 
sisting any further surrender of provinces. 

For altogether too long a period the Colonial Office in London 
and its representatives in the Canadas suffered from the infection of 
old-world ideas ; a colony was supposed to be a direct and immediate 
benefit to the mother country. Therefore, in regard to the Canadas. 
trade and revenue laws were made in England and framed to suit 
English interests ; a superabundance of highly paid officials sent 
from England drew their coveted salaries from the Colonial treas- 
ury •*^" a privileged clergy was alloted one-seventh of the crown 
lands ; too much local autonomy was undesirable lest the colonists 
should find the means to revolt against foreign dictation and op- 
pression ; contamination from democratic doctrines must be avoided 
and therefore immigration from democratic states must be care- 
fully supervised ; missionaries, teachers, books, and newspapers 
emanating from such a source were dangerous. The existence of 
a great Republic as a near neighbor was in itself a source of danger 
and the more especially when another old-world idea still held 
sway, namely that one of the functions of a nation was to pounce 
upon its unprotected neighbor. Would not the American eagle 
await its time for a favorable opportunity to swoop down u{X)n its 
prey in the northlands? The tardiness in surrendering forts, the 
unwillingness to admit American citizens, the efforts, legitimate and 
illegitimate to retain the good will of the Indians, disputes over 
strategic points along the boundary, futile attempts to prevent the 
dissemination of so-called American principles, the policy in regard 
to the placing of internal improvements — all these things were con- 
sidered matters of self-defense against American aggression. 

We have noticed that immediately after the close of the war in 



«»Hume in H. of C. Mar. 12, 1824, Hansard II Series Vol. 10 p. 855. 

Ibid Mar. 15, 1825, Hansard II Series Vol. 12 p. 1035. 

Bennett in H. of C. Mar. 12, 1824, Hansard II Series Vol. 10 p. 958. 

127 



i8i4 the old colonial restrictive system — the navigation laws — were 
enforced more rigidly than formerly. We have also noticed that 
the British a few years later found it prudent to adopt a more liberal 
policv ; the old navigation laws were so unsatisfactory that they 
must perforce give way to something more modern ; nevertheless 
the authorities across the ocean were slow to introduce any radical 
improvements. Even up to the coming of Lord Durham the internal 
administration of the Canadas and the regulation of afifairs directly 
or indirectly pertaining to the United States reflect not so much 
ignorance of, or indifiference to, the needs of the Canadas, as a more 
or less systematic pursuit of an antiquated and pernicious colonial 
policy. 



128 



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A list of till- inoiv helpful works used in I he iireparation of this thesis 
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C. A. G. = Canadian Archives, Series G. 

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tion, and Prospects of the Indian Tribes of the United States. Collected 
and Prepared under the Direction of the Bureau of Indian Affairs 

per Act of Congress, March 3, 1847 

Lippincott, Grambo & Co., Philadelphia, 1851 

Strachan, James. 

Visit to the Province of LTpper Canada in 1819 Aberdeen, 1820 

SuLTE, Benjamin 

Histoire des Canadiens-Francaises Montreal, 1SS2-18S4 

Talbot, Edward A. 

Five Years Residence in the Canadas, 1818-1823 London. 1824 

Turner, F. J. 

Character and Influence of the Indian Trade in Wisconsin... 

Johns Hopkins University Studies, Vol. IX 



131 



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